METAXA — listening to time

Stavros Psillakis: “Let's stop time and reassess life”

One of the most dedicated documentary filmmakers of our time turns his gaze to the “existential” side of people who face death every day in “METAXA — listening to time”, and talks to Flix about everything we fail to “hear”, surrendered as we are to a daily life made noisy by needless things.

Watching Stavros Psillakis's new documentary “METAXA — listening to time”, you cannot help but feel a sense of euphoria, wholly out of proportion to its central subject: the accounts of doctors at the METAXA hospital who, in the dual role of carer and cancer patient, confide what it is like to come so close to death and yet steer your thoughts away from the threat of the end, filling them instead with the feelings of a renewed appreciation of life – something none of us bothers any longer to spare even a little time for.

That was precisely Stavros Psillakis's intention when he met Nikos Karvounis, a doctor and cancer patient at the METAXA hospital. Together they set out to tell a story that would be about neither the state of health care in crisis-hit Greece nor even cancer itself and the terrifying place it holds in everyone's conscious or unconscious mind, but above all about a few fascinating stories of people who, through their own negotiation with death, came to know life anew.

What led you to start the documentary? Was there some incident involving someone close to you that inspired you to take up this subject?

No. What led to the documentary was meeting Nikos Karvounis, an oncologist at the METAXA hospital, and the idea was his. What interested me at first was the unusual case of treating doctors who were themselves cancer patients.

What was your intention in making the documentary? A record of an unusual community of doctors, or a different way of looking at cancer?

I was never interested in the medical side of cancer, or in exposing the state of the Greek health system today, or in documenting the good or bad conditions in public hospitals. My interest was first and foremost “existential”. I was interested in these people who are living through a very tough situation and in the way they cope with it, their dealings with death and what that stirs up in their thoughts and feelings. In fact I wanted to make a “poetic” documentary, and I am very glad that Nikos Karvounis agreed, and so we went ahead and made it.

A hopeful view of cancer runs right through the documentary. How much of that did you draw from the people who appear in it, and how easy was it to gain their trust so that they would talk to you about their stories and their thoughts?

It isn't difficult. Every time, whether as a filmmaker or as a human being, you receive from others what you are capable of receiving. What matters is the trust that is built between the two sides. Even in a simple human encounter, trust is the most important thing in deciding whether a relationship moves forward or not. And besides, you never know why someone is ready to talk to you about their life or about everything that is on their mind: it may be a need of their own, or your own willingness to listen to them... I never use any particular technique. I treat the protagonists of my films the way I would treat anyone I met in my daily life. Of course, the more serious the subject – as in this case – the more careful you have to be. But above all it is about the spirit in which you approach the other person or the subject you are dealing with. I don't believe there is such a thing as objectivity. If you are talking about the crisis, for example, there are two paths: sink into misery, or try to see where the way out of it might lie. My aim was not to talk with the film's protagonists about the misfortune of having cancer, but to search for the things they love. You know, people are always willing to talk about all the things they love, as long as someone asks them. The spirit here was “let's talk about life”, “let's see what is worth keeping from it”, “what truly has value and what doesn't”.

If there is one, what might the educational role of a documentary like this be, given how little most people know about cancer?

I remember that a few years ago, and even today, we wouldn't say the word “cancer” out loud. Things have changed, but if there is anything instructive in the documentary, it is that these people carry themselves with the utmost dignity, that their experience makes them reset the coordinates of their lives, and that in the end they give us lessons in living. They speak to us about everything we have forgotten.

Is one of those lessons the film's subtitle: listening to time?

Exactly. One of the people in the film says that through this experience “I learned to listen to time almost physically”. We live a daily life in which we no longer “hear” anything except the things that have been imposed on us. Let's stop for a moment and reassess life. These people say “I want to live”, and that is something that concerns us all.

How do you feel about the public's growing interest in Greek documentary?

It isn't surprising. I make only documentaries and I have no wish whatsoever to move into fiction. There are many stories I can tell, and everyday life feeds me daily with stories of people who inspire me, since what interests me is the “anthropological” documentary. I am glad that documentary in Greece is winning the esteem of fellow filmmakers, and also that many young people are turning to it – perhaps because it is cheaper than a fiction film, but even so they are testing themselves in the documentary form. Unfortunately, though, documentaries are not what the general public chooses. Let's be realistic. They reach people through their many screenings at cultural events or special screenings, but it is hard for them to find an audience. That is why a movement, in which I take part, was recently set up to promote documentaries, get them screened and improve the conditions under which they are produced. But I believe in young people and in the wonderful work they have shown in recent years. And I am sure we will see more fine things in the future.