AGIOUPA, TO KORITSI TOY KAMPOU


View at Tainiothiki tis Ellados
  • Other title(s): BED OF GRASS
    BED OF GRASS
  • Genre: Feature Film
  • Year: 1957
  • Description: Agioupa, an unruly orphan girl, sleeps in the fields, choosing the company of the birds to her fellow villagers. Thus, she is often raped by the peasants. A doctor, who feels pity for her, offers her a place to stay, but Agioupa leaves when she finds out that he is in love with another woman. Two peasants who want to rape her get into a fight, and one of them is killed. The peasants consider her a witch and lynch her. With the title Bed of Grass and dubbed in English, the film circulated in the United States and England, where it met with remarkable success.
    1. OPENING TITLES Shots of harvesters in wheat fields. Titles: A Truns-Lux release Parnassus Films Inc presents Bed of Grass. A Gregg G.Tallas Production Starring Anna Brazzou as Ayioupa and Mike Nicols with Vera Katri, Anestis Vlahos, Anton.Theodorelos, Dimitr.Boudoures, Ketty Geeny, Nana Viopoulou, Notis Peryalis, Elias Psaradakis Nitsa Avatagelou, Kimon Stathopoulos, George Stavrakakis, Nick Xepadakos, Frankoulis Frankoulis, Cinematography Kost. Theodoridis, Production Manager Takis Spanidis, Sound Recording Mikie Damalas, Music Recording Vassil Krodiras, Art Director Mike Nichols, Technicians Unit Manager Kostas Doukas, Ass.Cameraman G. Anastasiadis, Script Girl D. Kondogeorgou, Assistant Editor E.Provelengios, Photographer Nassos Gizikis, Gaffer Alekos Lebesis & G. Stavrakakis, Grip Ath.Spiliotos Cosmos Studios Athens, Music Manos Hadzidakis Conducting The Athens Symphony Orchestra, Original Screenplay Nottis Peryalis, English Titles by Herman Weinberg Producer Director Editor Gregg G.Tallas)
    10. THE VILLAGERS' DISTRUST OF THE DOCTOR'S DIAGNOSIS AND THEIR HOSTILITY TO THE DOCTOR AND AGIOUPA For security reasons, the doctor has locked Agioupa up at home. From there, he can see the farmers heading for their fields in time for harvesting. One of them asks him for help. It's Memas. Standing over a sick woman, the elderly charlatan performs witchcraft spells. When the doctor comes round and looks at the sick woman, he immediately makes his diagnosis: she has fallen ill with plague. He urgently needs to go into town to buy medicine. The charlatan with his witchcraft spells makes his diagnosis, too, and tells the villagers. Memas' wife is not infected with plague. It's just a stomach-ache that he can cure. As for the doctor, "it's him whose own house is plague-stricken". In the evening, a troupe of travelling actors has come to stage a performance at the local coffee-house. The whole village has gathered to attend. The doctor warns them of the risk of catching plague. The villagers become aggressive. The impresario asks him to examine the woman performing the exotic dancing, because she fainted during the performance. The doctor suggests that she is taken straightaway to his house. (GIORGIS' S HOUSE – THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE – THE VILLAGE – A FIELD – MEMAS' HOUSE – THE VILLAGE'S SQUARE - BACKSTAGE)
    11. AGIOUPA'S MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE DOCTOR'S RELATION WITH THE DANCER AND HER RUN-AWAY FROM HOME At the doctor's house, the girl is still in pain. misrecognizingthe girl's face as the woman in the photo, Agioupa feels she shouldn't be by the doctor's side. So she makes up her mind to leave the house unnoticed. (THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE – THE VILLAGE)
    12. SPREADING OF THE NEWS OF AGIOUPA'S RUN-AWAY AND HER BRUTAL MURDER BY THE VILLAGERS The villagers, instigated by the charlatan, get all worked up and set about eradicating the miasma, the curse on the village. News of Agioupa hanging around Uncle Lias' fields spreads like fire by word of mouth. Men and women, wielding their tools as weapons, hunt Agioupa down. Surrounded by farmers closing in threateningly on all sides, Agioupa makes desperate attempts at breaking through their line of attack. Raging and fuming, the farmers get her cornered at the threshing floor – right where she was born – where the women, worked up into a frenzy, batter Agioupa to death with agricultural tools. Covered in blood, Agioupa, breathing her last, hears her grandfather call out that he is waiting for her. Coming too late to her rescue, the doctor takes the girl's body in his hands and carries her away from the madding murderers, making his way to the plain with the wheat fields. (THE VILLAGE – FIELDS)
    2. AGIOUPA'S RAPE Taking a break from work for their midday lunch, the harvesters chat about Agioupa (Anna Bratsou), the beautiful, moonstruck, strangely-acting girl roaming wild the villages in the region, bathing naked in the river. When questioned by an old woman, Agioupa replies: "I guard the wheat". The old woman crosses herself and exclaims "An elf!" The farmers, convinced of her insanity, give her food and tease her, but the women keep her at bay, calling out to her contemptuously: "Get the hell out of here, you bitch!" Agioupa goes to the river. Two young farmers, Aloupis and Giorgis, follow her. At their approach, the girl plunges into the river and swims away. Giorgis follows her. Agioupa hides herself. Convinced that she has lost them, she takes off her clothes and delights in the sensation of the water on her naked body. Aloupis, the other young man, laying in wait nearby, apparently enjoys the sight. On approaching her, a woman's cry is heard. (THE RIVER – A FIELD)
    3. MONTHS LATER, AGIOUPA'S ILL-FATED CHILDBIRTH AND HER DOWNFALL Autumn – Winter (time's passage illustrated by calendar and agricultural activities). A night with heavy rain. Wandering barefoot, Agioupa takes shelter in a barn. She is pregnant and gives premature birth. She delivers the child herself, the rumble of thunder drowning her cries of pain and distress. The mooing of a cow is heard as she covers her newborn baby with a sack. The rain keeps pouring outside. Agioupa's baby doesn't survive and she buries it at a far-off spot under some trees. She wanders aimlessly across the plain. She steals food and is chased by the ill-disposed villagers. She steals a loaf of bread from an oven in an old woman's back yard. Perched up in a tree like a wild animal, she savours its fruit. (THE BARN – AN OLD VILLAGE WOMAN'S HOUSE – THE PLAIN – AN OLD VILLAGE WOMAN'S BACK YARD)
    4. ALOUPIS' SECOND ATTEMPT TO RAPE AYIOUPA. HER GET-AWAY AND SEEKING SANCTUARY IN THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE April. At the coffe-house, Aloupis and Giorgis play cards and talk about Agioupa. If she turns up, the best hand of cards will have her. It is said that she has given birth to a bastard child. "Who's the lucky guy that got her laid?" A villager, whose wife is about to give birth to their sixth child, is happily cracking jokes away, seated at a table in the company of the village "charmer", an elderly charlatan passing himself off as a practical doctor. Aloupis and Giorgis are out on the plain in search of Agioupa. They chase her across the crop fields. Aloupis catches up with her and attempts to rape her, but he hits him hard on the head with a stone. She manages to break free and lose them. She takes to her heels, reaches the outskirts of the village and takes shelter in the young doctor's barn. At night she creeps into his house to steal food but the doctor treats her wounds and wins her over. Agioupa tells him the story of her life: her name means hawk, a bird of prey; she is an illegitimate child, born at a threshing floor, where she was found by an elderly man, now dead, who raised her lovingly as his own child. (THE COFFEE-HOUSE – THE PLAIN – THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE)
    5. FLASHBACK TO AGIOUPA'S LIFE Agioupa's life-story (with flashbacks). A) The kind, sweet-talking grandpa, playing on his flute beautiful songs, who taught her to love birds and freedom. B) The poppies growing in the fields and grandpa's death. His fellow villagers would not let her attend the funeral. C) Crying her heart out, little Agioupa lays poppies at grandpa's grave. D) The traumatic experience of her adoption by a villager, the spanking and ill-treatment sustained by her step-mother and "sister" Lena. E) The incident about the little bird that cannot fly and Agioupa's rape by a bandit called Lampo at the river F) The villagers boo her in chorus and there is nowhere she can turn to for help. The door of the house where she grew up has been closed down on her. Ringing out in the middle of it all, her grandpa's sweet voice talking of God's animals' ingenuous love and the fear of men. (THE VILLAGE – THE PLAIN - THE VILLAGE CEMETERY – AGIOUPA'S FOSTER PARENTS' HOUSE – THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE – THE RIVER)
    6. THE DOCTOR'S HOSPITALITY TO AGIOUPA AND THE GROWING FEELINGS OF TRUST AND LOVE BETWEEN THEM The doctor treats her wounds and tells her to go to sleep. He goes to bed himself. He falls asleep, while Agioupa, feeling happy, pretends to be a frog. The following morning, Agioupa happily wakes up the doctor. She lights the fireplace and asks the doctor over, who offers her his bathrobe. Agioupa appreciates that he does not make a pass at her but instead tries his best to look after her. The doctor gets ready to go into town to buy things like medicine and other supplies. Agioupa is strongly advised to stay in and not open to anyone. When it gets dark, Aloupis, Giorgis and another villager try to break an entry. Agioupa, who has bolted all the doors, picks up a shotgun and fires in the air. Scared out of their wits, they take to their heels. The doctor comes back the following day. He has bought her things from the town: clothes and shoes. As he is looking at a woman's photo, Agioupa appears in front of him wearing his presents. As happy as can be, Agioupa picks up the jug and sails off to the water spring. When she comes back, she says meaningfully "Everyone was staring at me like a fool". In the evening she invites him over to bed. The doctor seems to have fallen asleep and does not respond. (THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE)
    7. AGIOUPA'S ARGUMENT WITH THE DOCTOR AND HER LEAVING THE HOUSE At an unearthly hour in the dark of the night, the villager (see scene 7) whose wife with is about to give birth to their sixth child, comes calling on the doctor, wakes him up and asks him to deliver his wife. Shortly afterwards, the doctor comes back looking very sad: the child survived but the mother died. Before long he finds out that Agioupa has done away with the woman's picture. The doctor wants to know the reason why, and Agioupa, clearly upset, breaks the picture. (THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE)
    8. THE DOCTOR'S SEARCH FOR AGIOUPA, GIORGIS'S MURDER OF ALOUPIS OVER AGIOUPA AND AGIOUPA'S GET-AWAY WITH THE DOCTOR Before the woman's funeral, the charlatan schemes and plots to turn the villagers against the doctor and Agioupa. If he were in the doctor's shoes, the woman would be alive now, and it is Agioupa and her ill-fate to blame for all the village's misfortunes. The doctor rides his horse all over the place looking for Agioupa, who has disappeared, and asking the villagers of her whereabouts. But nobody seems to know - or indeed be willing to tell him anything. Agioupa wanders the fields by herself. She tries to put together an impromptu song but her sobbing voice falters. Aloupis and Giorgis are looking for her. Finally they track her down. They call out to her as if they were sent by the doctor to find her, but she does not seem to believe them. However, they press on with their plotting and tell her that the doctor has sent word for her to meet him at Uncle John's hut. Taking extra safety precautions, Agioupa climbs up the rocky hillside. In the hut, the two young men have set a trap for her and bet on her in a game of cards: the best hand will have her. They kick up a row and draw their knives against each other. Giorgis is fatally wounded. Agioupa, who stands witness to the scene, runs away. At the foot of the hill, she runs into the doctor on horseback. (THE VILLAGE – THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE – A FIELD – THE FOOT OF THE HILL – UNCLE JOHN'S HUT)
    9. GIORGIS' FUNERAL – THE VILLAGERS' PREJUDICE AGAINST AGIOUPA AND THE DOCTOR The church bell tolls. Giorgis's body is carried by his fellow villagers. Aloupis looks inconsolable. The villagers blame the doctor and Agioupa for the curse that has befallen the village. One of the villagers cautions the doctor against protecting Agioupa. Back home, the doctor is in a cold sweat. Agioupa tries to reassure him. He declares his intention to leave the damned land. Mourning over a dead horse, the farmers talk about the curse that has befallen the village because of Agioupa. Superstitions and old wives' tales. (THE ENVIRONS OF THE VILLAGE – THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE)
  • Keywords: ΘΕΡΙΣΜΟΣ ΑΓΡΟΤΕΣ ΑΛΟΓΑ ΠΑΠΑΡΟΥΝΕΣ ΓΕΝΝΑ ΒΙΑΣΜΟΣ / HARVEST FARMERS HORSES POPPIES CHILDBIRTH RAPE / ΘΕΡΙΣΜΟΣ ΑΓΡΟΤΕΣ ΑΛΟΓΑ ΠΑΠΑΡΟΥΝΕΣ ΓΕΝΝΑ ΒΙΑΣΜΟΣ / HARVEST FARMERS HORSES POPPIES CHILDBIRTH RAPE
  • Provider: Tainiothiki tis Ellados
  • Production company: PARNASSOS FILM
  • Director: TALLAS GREGG. C.
  • Collection: Ψηφιοποιημένες ελληνικές ταινίες μυθοπλασίας