Xenia (2014) by Panos H. Koutras

This gay film is a journey of two brothers, Danny (16 years old) and Odysseus (18 years old), who want to find their father. On their journey, the audiences will find the beauty of crystal clear love between brothers who just have a common goal of protecting each other, the always-seemed-to-appear-at-the-end love of human when contexts just make them stick together, and the undeniable power of time which reveals any truth as always implied in the saying: “what you sow you shall reap”. However, the film does not push into that extreme but gives the audience a relaxed with smiling faces in some moments, not because it is pure humour, but because the pure truthful contents makes them smile satisfactorily.

Danny is a gay and kind of a naughty boy. But he is not naughty in a criminal and spoiled way. He is just childish and want to follow his dream, the dream of seeing his father who abandoned him and his brother long time ago. When his mother died, Danny is more motivated to find Odysseus and pushes him to seek the truth he has always wanted to. Doubtless, their journey is like an adventurous trip when they have little money and hardly any one to count on. Even if they do, things are just not easy for them because the nature of Danny is free and curious when Odysseus has his own dreams and determined. However, the love of Odysseus is a big love of brotherhood, and that makes Danny mature and this character evolves his action in a miraculous way.

In the end, Danny and Odysseus indeed finds their father. However, at that time, what is important? Or more exactly, what will be more imporant when their only purpose has been obtained? In an ironic but marvellous way, finding their father turns out to be a phrase in which audiences see as a theme for the developing pure love between brothers. Their father, as Odysseus said: “Maybe”, is a reason, a motivation through which the boys have to take risks to see what their life is going to be…

At first, I think it is a gay love between brothers. I am wrong, and I am very happy for that wrongness because what I find is something huger, something the nature has defined and smartly selected. That is, there are many kinds of love, but its only nature, its unique root, comes from sacrifice, and time is an immortal and trustworthy witness who observes, gives all and may kill all.