Of all the glittering cities that adorn the Mediterranean littoral, few have escaped calamity at one juncture of history or another, and many are crammed with ghosts. Some are actual ghost towns: Consider the half of Famagusta that has been crumbling into the Cypriot sand since 1974, or Thessaloniki, which after being robbed of its Jewry by German occupiers never really recovered. 

Then there is Izmir, and the unique catastrophe that sealed its fate as a mostly peripheral metropolis even though nearly three million people live there today. A hundred years ago the denizens of Smyrna, as it was called until about 1930, numbered far fewer but their cosmopolitan city exuded a now vanished radiance. Catch a glimpse of that bygone shine, if you can, by watching a remarkable film from Greece titled, simply, “Smyrna.”

(Note: “Smyrna” will be screened in selected theaters nationwide as a one-night-only event on December 8. On January 11, it will be screened at the European Parliament at Brussels.)

Nothing about Smyrna was really simple, as one of the characters observes. How could it be? This was a historically Hellenic and generally thriving city under Ottoman rule until that empire’s grasp loosened following its defeat in World War I. Then followed the Greco-Turkish war, which began with Greek soldiers entering Smyrna in 1919 and ended with units of the Turkish army setting most of the city on fire in September 1922.

In one of the 20th century’s most brutal episodes of ethnic cleansing, an estimated 100,000 people, mainly Christian Greeks and Armenians, were killed. For  proponents of the new Turkish Republic, politically mostly in place by 1923, the destruction of Smyrna was simply an accessory to the climb toward statehood. 

For Greeks, many of whose families had lived and traded at Smyrna for generations under the Ottomans, Izmir is still and will probably always be Smyrna. The film name-checks some of the more prominent families — the shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, for one, was raised in Asia Minor and fled Smyrna as a refugee after escaping the conflagration in which three of his uncles and an aunt perished.

The film traces the doings and undoings of the Baltatzis, a wealthy family of Greek merchants who enjoy cocktail parties and performances by Caruso at Smyrna’s theater before it burned, hobnob with resident British aristocrats and bright-eyed American comers, and, lifted by profitable trade, generally live the Levantine good life.

Germany, though, loses the war and the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire ensures that fault lines in the family follow. The elder brother, Dimitris, stands by the Greek leader, Eleftherios Venizelos, and his Megali Idea for an expanded Greek state; his younger brother, the more prescient Spyros, sees trouble on the horizon to which most Smyrniots are painfully oblivious. 

Chief among those is Dimitris’s gracious, polyglot wife Filio — played by the wonderful Mimi Denissi — who mends fences between the brothers; mingles with her household’s Turkish servants, who are treated more like family; and jots down keen political observations on the margins of a recipe book.

She is the glue that holds the family together, but by the end of the film all of her family has died either in the fire or drowning trying to escape it, while for various reasons dozens of Allied warships in Smyrna’s harbor stood still. 

The first half of the film flows along elegantly in the Merchant-Ivory fashion: the food looks Instagram-worthy, the people are stylishly dressed, and you might even mistake the Smyrna of then for the Positano of now, minus the clifftops and superyachts.

Yet then, in a deft directorial maneuver that consciously or not mirrors the devastating quickness with which Smyrna’s fate turned, the pacing changes gears. It is September 13, 1922, and Turkish troops and regulars, having routed the Greeks earlier at the Battle of the Sakarya, are bearing down on the heart of Smyrna. Enjoying a Mediterranean seaside idyll is not on their agenda.

The agony and awfulness of the destruction of Smyrna is impossible to recreate on screen, but director Grigoris Karantinakis gives a faithful approximation. The savage killing by a lynch mob of the spiritual leader of Smyrna’s large Greek Orthodox community, Metropolitan Chrysostomos, precedes the inferno.

It saw thousands of Greeks running for their lives to the once iconic Smyrna quay, many jumping into the water in a desperate attempt to steer clear of the flames and dodge the thrust of Turkish knives. Some of the overpacked skiffs will capsize; an untold number of evacuees drowned just inches from the water’s edge.

The crescendo of violence is harrowing and, for philhellenes in particular, possibly excruciating to watch. That’s because the unfolding ruination is in effect the creation of a new city now mostly populated by Turks, but also by all those sophisticated and martyred Smyrniots done in by the contortions of a messy nationalism. Now they are Izmir’s ghosts.

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Interview by Mr. Grant with Grigoris Karantinakis, director of “Smyrna” (translated from Greek):

What motivated you to make this film now? The play by Mimi Denissi (who also stars in the film) was a big success in Greece. But was the 100th anniversary of the destruction of Smyrna also a factor?

I have always wanted to do something related to the history of the Asia Minor disaster. These are my roots; my grandfather was from there. However, the script was the main thing. I read a script whose content interested me. Additionally, the hundredth anniversary of the burning of Smyrna was a coincidence, since the film was originally to be shot a year before, but the Covid issue delayed shooting. So it was fate to come to audiences at the centennial.

Would it be fair to characterize the decision to have the action begin at a modern refugee camp, on the Greek island of  Lesbos, as political, or was this done more as  a way to make the story of what happened a hundred years ago resonate more deeply with a contemporary audience?

In the play, Filio Baltatzi says: “Remember, don’t forget.” In essence the introductory scene reminds us that history repeats itself, it may not be me or a relative of mine on the boat or in the refugee caravan now, but tomorrow no one knows … we are all potential refugees.

There are some parallels with refugee issues that cut across time, even if we simply speak about human endurance in the face of adversity. In terms of the specificity of Smyrna, there are also unique geographic elements. Do you see any parallels, say, with what happened at Smyrna and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974?

In Cyprus we had the invasion of a Turkish state of another independent state like Cyprus. Just as happened recently with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In recent months the world has witnessed the near total destruction of Mariupol, a Ukrainian city that had some Greek heritage. For the most part, the world stood by as this happened, in a similar way to how no Western powers intervened to avert the tragedy in Smyrna. Would you say, as a director or perhaps simply as a Greek, that people are sometimes quite slow to learn the lessons of history?

In the destruction of Smyrna we had, as far as Greece was concerned, the culmination of the processes that followed the defeat of Germany and Turkey in World War I. We had the wrong choices of the Greek political and military leadership including the king, but basically with the choices of the Allies regarding the support or lack thereof for our country. Clearly they changed the paper on which they “bet,” as a result of which they handed over to the flames the cradle of multiculturalism of that time which was Smyrna.

People and especially the politicians who determine our lives within society are not taught by history; interests override the value of human life and unfortunately we saw it then in Smyrna, we saw it in Syria, we see it now in Ukraine. It’s unfortunate ….

Is the Baltatzi family portrayed in the film based on an actual Smyrniot family?

Yes, of course, there is a Baltatzi family, one of the richest families of Smyrna, but [they are portrayed with] plenty of fictional elements, that is, it is not the story of the real family.

The role of one of the Baltatzi’s servants, Halil, is played by a Turkish actor, Burak Hakki. This is a pivotal role because he is portrayed as part of the build-up of tensions that preceded the catastrophe but also as someone who, at least in the movie, helped the protagonist to survive. Was it difficult to find a Turkish actor willing to take on such a role?

Burak was chosen for the role from the beginning. He liked the script and, like me, he doesn’t think that the Turks are presented as the absolute villains of the story. They were then also victims; there were many Turks who were killed in the heart of the destruction. Many Turks helped to save fellow citizens Greeks, Armenians, and Jews at that time.

What has been the reaction to the film in Turkey?  Is there any chance that the movie can be seen there?

Many Turks have seen it and have had no problem, nor did the actors have a problem. Now against the backdrop of politics and the propaganda which is the tool of polarization, it seems to me difficult that it would show there.

What was the biggest challenge in recreating the Smyrna of 1922 in the Athens of 2021?

The challenge was in the reconstruction of the era with the opulence and indolence that prevailed then, but also in the rendering of the disaster with the panic and the people who were squeezed between the fire and the sea.

In the last week of filming at Faliro, in southern Athens, the set was burned to the ground. What was that like?

We burned the set under controlled conditions, but the conditions were challenging. It was the height of summer with 104-degree heat amid smoke and flames, with masks due to Covid. It was difficult and emotional because I kept thinking about what hell people went through back then.