Reworking the Greek myths is a living tradition. EFFI O BLAENAU, Marc Evans’ Welsh-language drama, takes Greek mythology and transports its tropes and tragedies to a rural Welsh housing estate. Based on the award-winning one-woman play Iphighenia in Splott by Gary Owen, the film follows Effi (Leisa Gwenllian) through her wild nights of partying and blurred hungover days. She does not see, or see a point in imagining, a way out of this life, but one fateful evening she meets a handsome, charming veteran at the club and spends the night with him. But the consequences of this night soon have devastating consequences, bringing Effi face-to-face with the reality of underfunded, unequal healthcare in rural Wales. If the Greek myths are obsessed with facing fate and the often unfair, variable whims of the gods, EFFI O BLAENAU is a near-perfect modern parable.
Iphighenia in Splott (at least as seen at National Theatre in London in early 2016) was an unforgettably powerful theatrical experience, and giving it a life on film (translated into Welsh, enhancing the verisimilitude of Effi’s world) is hugely welcomed. Translating the play from extended monologue to a naturalistic cinematic story is largely successful, albeit with a few hiccups. Some of the plot developments and reveals feel janky on film, the monologue narration of Owen’s play is sometimes replaced by the most literal telling rather than staged, poetic words.
EFFI O BLAENAU is a terrific, timely picture of very modern, very preventable tragedies.
On the whole, however, adding more characters to Effi’s world is a nifty touch, allowing Effi not only to affect change as an active participant but to react to the people and places that impact her. In Evans’ direction and Eira Wyn Jones’ cinematography, the audience and protagonist often realise key developments in the same wordless moments (far more effective than the aforementioned “telling” sections, though it makes them worse in comparison). While perhaps the script and storyboard could have had one more revision, EFFI O BLAENAU is entirely the right way to bring a critically acclaimed play to a wide audience.
Effi is a force of nature; letting her exist within a world, impacting it and being impacted by it in equal measure, creates a searing character portrait. Gwenllian’s extraordinary performance traces an arc from invulnerability to entire loss of control, creating a wholly sympathetic and endlessly captivating woman who it is impossible not to root for.
EFFI O BLAENAU is a terrific, timely picture of very modern, very preventable tragedies. That said, it is in no way tied to its era and milieu: as long as people think with hearts and not heads, and as long as we live in a world where blind chance can have the same impact as thoughtful choices, Effi will face these trials.