Social Decay (1932)
June 25, 1932Release Date
Plot.
Where to Watch.
Cast & Crew.
Stelios Tatasopoulos
Dinos Vristhenis / Director
Gerasimos Arsenis
Ketty Diridaoua
Joly Garbi
Danai Grizou
Rika Karouzaki
Giorgos Kavoukidis
Tasos Kefalas
Spyros Lavazanos
Kostas Logariastakis
Giorgos Mouftouris
Nikos Platyrachos
Composer
Mihalis Gaziadis
Cinematographer
Eleni Vlavda
Nikos Spyrou
Kimon Spathopoulos
Niki Pappa
Details.
Release DateJune 25, 1932
Original NameΚοινωνική σαπίλα
StatusReleased
Running Time1h 2m
Genres
Last updated:
Wiki.
Social Decay (Greek: Κοινωνική Σαπίλα) is a 1932 Greek silent film directed by Stelios Tatasopoulos. The film features social realism in Athens during the 1930s featuring prisons, drugs, gangs, sex, strikes, and clashes with law enforcement. The director assisted in the conservation and editing of the film in 1989 in collaboration with the Greek Film Archive. The film was discovered in a storage room at the Rex theatre in Athens during the 1980s.The film tackles issues of social injustice during the 1930s and features a variation of social classes in Athens during the period. The film historically references the influx of refuges that overcrowded the city of Athens after the war and the poverty stricken situation. The artist demonstrates the upper, middle, and lower-class social structures and the struggle for labor reform. During that period a special law was passed entitled idionymon restricting union activity. Tatasopoulos boldly introduces the dark underworld of Athens featuring the use of heroin and hashish. He also shows viewers the struggle between a pimp and his grasp on a woman representing crimes control over the poverty-stricken nation. It was the only film of the era to address the lack of freedom of political expression and unionization.