John the Violent by Tonia Marketaki (1973)

It’s midnight on a deserted street in Athens. A young woman is stabbed to death by a stranger, who instantly slips into the shadows. The alleged perpetrator, John Zachos, is a mentally unstable young man who fantasizes about killing women. He believes this gives him a sense of empowerment and validates his manhood as dictated by society at large. After his arrest, he immediately confesses to the murder, but during the trial it becomes apparent that his testimony is an impression of what he has read in the press and is full of inconsistencies. The search for the truth is interrupted and the battle between society and individual rages on.

This monumental debut by Tonia Marketaki was based on real-life events, which caused great controversy in the media and mesmerised audiences at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. The labyrinthine psychological portrait of a self-confessed murderer, forged in the hands of toxic masculinity, sweeps across the darkened streets of a city (and an era), plagued by uncertainty and listlessness. As it turns out, the truth has many faces and guilt has even more. Marketaki does not focus on the crime, but only uses it as a springboard for a feminist exploration that is light years ahead of its time. John the Violent is a definitive study of ethics in 1960s Greece, a stifling delineation of a psychologically fractured social fabric looking for redemption.