A HANDSOME young man from somewhere on the far shores of the Mediterranean jumps off a ship full of illegal immigrants. He swims towards the lights on the coastline, hoping to make it to a better life in France.
He can hardly believe his eyes when he wakes up on a beach next morning. Naked men and women are frolicking in the sun with beach balls. Welcome to Europe, the film seems to be saying, a veritable paradis sur mer. But is this a land of freedom or an exhausted, decadent civilisation in decline?
Eden Is West is directed by Costa-Gavras, who was born in Greece. He went to Paris in 1951 to study. Since then, he has put down deep roots in France, taken citizenship and become hugely respected as a political filmmaker, the director of Z (1969), State of Siege ('73), Missing ('81), and Music Box ('89).
Most of these are not at all comedic but in Eden Is West the 76-year-old Costa-Ga…