A sad, shocking education: Maria Iliou's SMYRNA: A Cosmopolitan City, 1900-1922

The power of a good documentary to inform, educate, entertain, shock and encourage further thinking and discussion is brought to fine fruition in the film, SMYRNA: THE DESTRUCTION OF A COSMOPO-LITAN CITY, 1900-1922. Even, I suspect, old fogies like TrustMovies, may have some trouble coming up with the time and place that this fabled city existed (and we don't mean Smyrna, Georgia), so long has it been since many of us have heard the name or, for that matter, the larger location in which this city rested: Asia Minor. (It has literally been decades, I think, since I've heard spoken or seen those two words in print.)

Now, thanks to writer/director Maria Iliou (shown at left) and the several experts whom she and her crew have rounded up, this truly cosmopolitan city comes to life -- and death -- in a documentary that should take its place as a prime work of necessary historical excavation. We often hear the world "cosmopolitan" bandied about, in reference to American cities such as New York and San Francisco, but to hear our narrators speak about Smyrna -- the sounds of its multi-cultural music, its languages spoken, fashions worn and food eaten -- is to define that word anew, and definitively.

Filled with wonderfully rich, archival footage, we see a city made up of Muslims, Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Levantines (TM had to look up that word, so he figures you might need the definition, too), each group in its own district and all managing to get along within the borders of the city -- thanks in good part to the kind of "mayor" who made certain that every group was included in the "spoils," so to speak.

The film give us a tale of nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism, and for those of us who've lived awhile, it will not be difficult to imagine which group prevails. Though located in the area of the Ottoman Empire known as Asia Minor, Smyrna was always pulled most strongly between two cultures, religions and countries -- Greece and Turkey, Christianity and the Muslim world. The city became such a popular place that it was, in a sense, "protected" by the Great Powers, at least so long as it served the interests of those powers.

After World War I, the favor of the Great Powers moved from Greece to Turkey, for reasons of trade, among other things. The historians/narrators gives some very good history here, with cogent explanations of what was happening and why. One big question that hangs over the film is why did not the residents of Smyrna realize the horror that was on the horizon, which ought to have been clearer to see. Yet life in the city was so secluded from what was happening elsewhere -- in other cities, in the nearby countryside -- that, like Germany and much of Europe pre-World War II, the populace did not want to believe what they most needed to at that time.

The experts here include Alexander Kitroeff, Giles Milton, Victoria Solomonidis, Eleni Bastea and Leyla Neyzi, and they are all worth seeing and hearing. When it comes time to tell us what happened to Smyrna, the speakers do not stint, and it is among the most horrible tales of destruction and genocide that I can recall -- made worse by the fact that warships of the Great Powers were sitting in the Smyrna harbor all the while and for too long a time did absolutely nothing to help the populace.

The story has its few heroes, as well as its many villains (foremost among these the actions of the Greek military as they withdrew, and then much more so the Turks). After the Armenian genocide, Turkey now has another permanent blot on its honor with the Smyrna story. And of course, that country refuses to own up to anything. Little wonder it is still not a full-fledged member of the European Union. Though, if and when it is finally accepted, this will have more to do with the Higher Powers getting what they want and less about anything so trivial as a judgement on the country's past actions and its refusal to take responsibility for them.

This Smyrna documentary begins its two-week theatrical run on Friday, April 5, in New York City at the Quad Cinema, where director Maria Iliou (shown above) and Historical Consultant Alexander Kitroeff will be present for a Q&A after the 7:00 show on Friday, April 5th. There will be another Q&A with Director Maria Iliou and the film's director of photography, Allen Moore, on Friday April 12th at the 7:00pm show. You can learn of other screenings internationally by first clicking here, and then clicking on SCREENINGS AND NEWS at the bottom of the frame.