Parvas is an unexpected love story between the present and the past. Through a focus on the ordinary--the expiring village life of a elderly Greek family-- it reveals the subtle beauty of decay and the ephemeral. Amorgos, the island where the documentary takes place, is a quiet, emotional landscape that the filmmaker captures in mesmerizing shots of the countryside, wrinkles of the skin, and with his own ever-present loneliness. It manages to be an essential film without being essentializing; it's fantastic and rare these days to watch a documentary with filming that takes a more discreet role, allowing the complexity of the characters to develop. I have wanted to see this film for about eight years now and am so glad to have finally had the opportunity. I was taken away, and back.
