From tales told in hashish dens came the Greek "Urban Blues" called "Rembetiko," which colorfully illustrate the story of modern Greece.
REMBETIKO, a unique and fascinating drama from Greece, uses a heart-wrenching story to explore rembetika music, a form of urban blues that was popular among the lower classes and social outcasts through much of the 20th century. Greek actress Sotiria Leonardou, who also co-scripted, stars as Marika, a rembetika singer whose family immigrated to Greece from Smyrna after the Turks pillaged the city in 1922. The family's hard life in the slums of Piraeus provides a colourful backdrop to explain the origins and meaning of rembetiko. Marika's rise as a singer parallels the political history of Greece, connecting the times to the music.
The movie retells the story of Greece, from 1920 to 1955: the national disaster in Asia Minor, the one million refugees who came to Greece, the World War II, the Nazi occupation, the Civil War. The tragedy and the glory of a nation during the century. A voyage to history of the first half of the 20th century, but also a voyage to the origins of rembetiko.
REMBETIKO is an original Greek epic which takes me right back to the years 1984 and 1985 when I lived and worked in Piraeus where I spent my evenings in tavernas, twirling my Greek komboloi, drinking retzina, and listening to rembetika.
