I wanted to buy a horse that would take me to places not easily reached by men.
I got in touch with the horse-dealers' world, and I didn't buy a horse.
I began the film with that longing for the horse still alive in me.
Kyriakos the horse-dealer is the man who led me to places where the camera cannot easily reach.
And so the character of Balamos came into being; as his name denotes, he is a man who flies into ecstasies, who is always on the move. Balamos doesn't seem to have any specific purpose in mind; he walks around in a dream and gets involved in situations as they come along, without any reservations. Every now and then he comes upon Kyriakos, who appears under several disguises: now as a Magus, now as the Big Boss, now as a Cattle-Dealer or as a Chaldean High Priest; whatever the disguise, Kyriakos exerts an irresistible attraction on Balamos.
This kind of progress makes time cease to be a limit. Balamos emerges as a defendant in a medieval court of justice, a slave in the early Christian era; he comes upon the female Yeti, hears the oracle of the Pythoness by the river, kisses the hand of the Prophet who has witnessed the crucifixion of Christ, and finally, on Mount Olympus, changes into a Dracula figure that drinks the blood of horses.
He is stripped of the gift he had been endowed with: the ability to continue. He travels by taxi, like everybody else. Balamos is a film.
Stavros Tornes |