Lead:

　　Here are the memories of “Tiantan Award”. Today, we would like to talk about the film The Waiter from the Official Selection of Tiantan Award. The Waiter was directed by a fresh filmmaker, Steve Krikris in Greece as his debut of feature film. Featuring an extraordinary potential, the film tells us the loneliness of a man with a mysterious case. The Waiter was awarded the Best Actor and Best Music at the 9th Beijing International Film Festival.

　　In late 1980s, Steve Krikris lived in New York, which was normal since he had to travel to and from Greece and America for studies and shooting. However, what shocked him was that his neighbor was murdered one day, and the more shocking was that he got a glimpse of the murderer.

　　In 2018, he turned the experience into his first film – The Waiter.

　　In the film, Renos is a hardworking and meticulous waiter, just like a machine, who organizes tables and serves food mechanically. He treats his neighbor politely and emotionlessly. 

　　Such a tedious, mechanical and repeated life impresses us through the cold tone and hollow images.

　　One day, a strange man opens the door of his neighbor, saying that he comes to help feed the cat as the neighbor leaves for business travel. Soon, Renos finds his neighbor dead.

　　The director's experience is the hammer that breaks the tranquil life of Renos who is so lonely. His normal life is out of balance due to the murder. But this lonely man is actually yearning for the unprecedented excitement.

　　Krikris shared his experience of creation at the BJIFF. For the basic setting of the murder, in his words, he wanted to study how a waiter reacts on this.

　　The combination of suspicion and weirdness is also the tact of another Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Favourite), who started the “trend of Greek weirdness”.

　　Once working among the crew of The Waiter, Krikris highly appreciated Lanthimos’ works. But he never puts the film in such trend. He stressed that The Waiter has not a weird utopian setting as it is based on an event that is likely to happen and truly happened in real life. 

　　More importantly, it is the boredom on a simple life and the struggle to seize all new things that can truly touch us. It is also the most fascinating aspect in this seemingly fantastic film.