Το προξενιό της Άννας (1972)

The story concerns Anna (Anna Vagena), a maid in an upper-middle-class Athens household for ten whole years, who agrees to go on a date with a young man her employers have arranged for her to meet. After a brief delay of just a few minutes, the scolding that follows reveals her employers’ tyrannical nature. Her life unfolds through a series of incidents that ultimately prevent her from breaking free from her position as a foster daughter. To exploit her, the family offers her promises and gifts, as well as the hope of a respectable future by giving her the husband they have chosen for her. The family’s daily life, with its traditional middle-class customs, and its personal disputes with other relatives reflect their greed, egocentrism, and their manipulation of her into serving them, while keeping her bound to a social sphere in which she is not considered an equal member. As a result, her independence and emancipation are continually postponed. The heroine’s character (Anna Vagena) embodies all the traits of a provincial woman who submits, is bound by her word, and faithfully follows provincial ideas about family, its ideals, and the obligation to remain bound to it for its own good.