Fuck the Polis
By Kit Macdonald

At the Edinburgh Fringe sometime around 2005, I saw the comedian Miles Jupp, whose superbly observed schtick was (and still often is) a blustering kind of Boris Johnson-esque clueless posh-boy character. "I saw some graffiti the other day," Jupp grandly observed in one of the best jokes of a fine show, "that read: 'fuck the polis' … And ever since I have been wondering: what do the people of Edinburgh have against the Greek city state?"
It's therefore delightful to see this sweet piece of wordplay surface again in the title of this documentary-style film by the Portuguese filmmaker Rita Azevedo Gomes. The film blends travelogue, poetry and philosophical reflection, and tells the story of Irma, a woman who believed she was dying and took a journey across the Greek islands two decades previously. In the present day, and still very much with us, she retraces her path with three younger companions.
