Soul Kicking: 'The Water Calls'

‘The water calls. It's a long time since anyone drowned.’
(Woyzeck)

Above is Yiannis Economides’ second film, made in 2005, Η Ψυχή στο Στόμα (I Psychi sto Stoma – known in English as Soul Kicking).

Soul Kicking is even bleaker than the Cypriot film-maker’s debut Spirtokouto, depicting a world in which human relations have broken down and all that's left is violence, brutality, selfishness and loathing.

The film opens with a line from Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck (1836) – 'The water calls. It's a long time since anyone drowned' – and indeed Economides' film is a reworking of the play, which follows the tragic demise of an abused and harried man made insane by the obscene society in which he lives and is driven towards a sacrificial murder.

The very talented Erikkos Litsis, who had the lead role in Spirtokouto, stars again in Soul Kicking. In the clip from Soul Kicking above, Takis (Litsis) is called round to deal with a family dispute, but it's too much for him.