The Tree and the Swing (2013) User Reviews

A story that fizzles

[enaskitis-1 · 5/10 · 12 February 2014]

The production is decent, the sound is very good for a Greek film (most Greek films have terrible sound, and you cannot hear what actors say). But the story never gets off and at the second half it escapes from the hands of the storyteller and characters start acting implausibly. Eleni gets friendly with Nina, then attacks her in a most improbable way, then gets friendly again, and all these fluctuations are unjustified. The movie is supposed to move you, and you may get some tears but they're of the superficial variety, after they've dried you don't feel anything in the heart. Too many close-ups, and a general feeling that the story isn't engaging. The result is TV rather than cinema, except for the great length.

The director might do a better movie in the future, provided that she writes a tighter script and she distances herself from the TV aesthetic.

Intriguing, perhaps but not really entertaining...

[aldebaran68 · 6/10 · 16 December 2022]

This is one of the better Greek movies of recent times.

It's not really 'my kind of movie' but it has a quality about it that deserves recognition.

A lot of Greek movies tend not to have a 'beginning, middle and end'... A bit like Greece itself, they seem indefinite and ambiguous. It's OK if one is a fan of relationship/family movies, Greeks do lots of them...or social consciousness movies.

I'm not particularly fond of either genre but I can appreciate quality when I see it.

The actors and performances are credible. There is good continuity and interconnectedness. The script is OK.

It's not an 'entertaining movie'. It's a social awareness movie and I don't really go in for those. But it is good for an audience that goes for that sort of thing. I wish it did have a beginning, middle and end, would make it easier to relate to. It does have an ending, but you have to wait until maybe halfway through to understand where the film is heading. There tend to be too many ambiguities in Greek movies, as in Greek life, I suppose, in that esp. Since 2008/10, Greeks really have no idea where their country is heading/being driven by the EU. So many movies seem to reflect this.

I prefer screen simply for entertainment. Greek screen productions are for me very rarely entertaining... So I try them out just out of curiosity.

I give it 6 for quality. That's being fair, but it doesn't indicate entertainment value. Need to look elsewhere for that.

Enjoyed the story and its evolution

[blissfilm · 9/10 · 26 June 2014]

I saw this film at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival (where it won first prize). I really enjoyed the evolution of the story as played out through the scenes and through the lives of these people. There were no sort of "pre-told" relationships; we found out through the script what was going on between each of these people as it naturally evolved through the story. It made me think about what "home" is, and played against the memories we have about home -- and the challenges to that idea as we grow and experience more of life. There is also a kind of hidden history here about the Balkans and Greece in particular; the film takes you into how history has shaped the lives of people in a country through their experiences, and especially how human beings make individual decisions to either defy the brokenness of that history or to mend it. Very scenic as well.