To vlemma tou Odyssea
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
In "Ulysses' Gaze" ("To Vlemma Tou Odyssea," 1995), a Greek-American filmmaker, not named in the film, and only referred to as "A" in the script, is on a quest to find three lost reels of undeveloped film, the first ever produced in Greece, from around 1905. These films are in fact the first cinematographic record, the first "gaze" in the philosophical sense, into the soul of the region. As the title implies, the story will take the form of an odyssey that begins in Greece and continues through Albania (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, known to the Greeks as the Republic of Skopje), Bulgaria, Rumania, Serbia, and finally Bosnia.The film opens with an old black and white silent film that shows some village women weaving. In a voice-over, Harvey Keitel comments, "Weavers in Avdella, a Greek Village, 1905, the first film made by the brothers Miltiades and Yannakis Manakis, [who filmed] all the ambiguities, the contrasts, the conflicts in this area of the world." For those of you who would watch "Ulysses' Gaze" only to find out if these three films ever existed, you now know the answer, and you don't have to watch to the end. But if you follow the advice of the Greek poet C. P. Cavafi, in his poem "Ithaca" (1911): "When you start on your journey to Ithaca, / then pray that the road is long, / full of adventure, full of knowledge", then you will enjoy the next 180 minutes of the journey.Following this antique piece of film showing the weaving village women, and before the opening titles, we see a small masterpiece of a scene, as only Angelopoulos can produce. An old man, standing on a quay, is getting his old-type camera ready to film a sailing ship coming out of the harbor of Salonika. The old man is Yannakis Manakis, and the scene, which took place in 1954, is recounted to "A" out of the camera's field of view by an old man who had been Manakis's assistant at that time. The assistant is not shown as he would have been at the time, but as he is today. While we watch Manakis finish preparing his camera and his assistant standing behind him recounting the event, the films takes on color. As the blue ship appears on the right side of the screen, Manakis is struck by a heart attack and collapses in a chair. The assistant walks toward the right of the screen, all the while continuing with his story. The camera scans to the right, and we discover "A" standing. "A" walks leftward, passing the point where we had just seen Manakis and his camera, but they are no longer there. We continue following "A" walking to the left, until the blue ship reappears in the field of view. The camera now follows the ship, slowly zooming in, until the ship stands still and fills the screen. Eventually, the camera stops tracking the ship and it disappears to the left. We are contemplating a blue-grey sea that dissolves into a sky of the same color. In his long shot, Angelopoulos has covered sixty years, and set the tone for the whole journey.As the film begins, "A" (Harvey Keitel) has arrived in a rainy Florina, a town in northern Greece, where one of his films is to be shown. The film is somehow controversial, and religious fanatics plan to demonstrate against its screening. One of the screening organizers advises "A" to leave town for his own safety. As "A" is about to enter a taxi, a woman (Maia Morgenstern) in her thirties passes him by and "A," apparently stunned, follows her, muttering to himself: "I did not expect you here." She disappears between the groups of demonstrators and counter-demonstrators who face each other. Morgenstern, who plays the roles of four different women in the film, is "A's" old love whom he left years ago, and therefore, a Penelope figure. The two groups rush toward each other, but the resulting confrontation is left unseen.Cut to a dreary winter day, with snow on the ground. "A" arrives at an Albanian border crossing in a taxi. While the taxi driver (Thanassis Vengos) tends to the police formalities, "A" notices an older lady (Dora Volanaki) with a suitcase standing nearby. "A" walks toward her, and she asks if he could give her a lift to a town over the border. She plans to visit her sister, whom she has not seen for forty-five years. "A" agrees and helps her into the taxi. Just then, a group of people arrives in a bus: they are illegal Albanian immigrants who were rounded up by the Greek police and are being return to their home country. As "A's" taxi proceeds across the Albanian side of the border, we see all along the road, in a desolate and gloomy snowy landscape, hundreds of Albanians standing like statues, waiting for a chance to sneak into Greece. The taxi reaches the town of Korytsa, stops in the middle of an empty square, and "A" helps the lady out. The taxi leaves, and a tracking-back long shot reveals the isolation and desolation of the town.The taxi continues toward the Macedonian border, but it has to stop because of snow on the road. The friendly taxi driver sensibly decides against a perilous crossing, and settles down, waiting for the snow to be cleared. He engages "A" in a conversation while listening to Greek music and drinking. He says, "Greece is dying.We are dying as a people," reflecting on the present situation of Greece and its people."A" arrives, apparently on a bus in Monastiri, in the Republic of Skopje. He is looking for the original home of the Manakis brothers. He stands in front of the door, and the film dissolves into old black and white footage made around 1956 by the Manakis brothers. The house is now a museum, and "A" enters. Inside, he briefly meets with a young lady (Maia Morgenstern), who gives him the cold shoulder. Later that evening, on the train to Skopje, "A" meets her again. He explains in detail his journey's purpose, and we learn that the young woman's name is Kali, which stands for Calypso, the goddess who held Ulysses captive for seven years on her island, Ogygia.. Kali tells "A" that the Manakis' films are not in the Skopje film archives. In Skopje, "A" is continuing on by train to Bulgaria and Kali is on the platform. "A" recounts to her an event he witnessed two years earlier on the island of Delos. The train has started leaving the station and is picking up speed. Kali is running on the platform alongside the train, fascinated by "A's" story. Finally, "A" grabs her and pulls her aboard. He continues his story, and Kali is so moved by it that she does not resist "A's" passionate embrace. She will now share "A's" journey.The train pulls in the station at the border. "A" and Kali are asked to step down -- apparently, there is something wrong with "A's" passport. Past and present mix once more: the train station alters and "A" finds himself being interrogated by an official dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing. "A" is now being addressed as if he were Yannakis Manakis. He is accused of sedition against the state of Bulgaria.. Although "A" protests that he does not understand, he is blindfolded and taken before a firing squad. At the last moment, a messenger arrives: King Ferdinand of Bulgaria has commuted Yannakis Manakis' sentence to exile until the war (The Balkan war of 1912-13) is over."A" is reunited with Kali outside the contemporary police station. They board another train for Bucharest. As they step off the train, a young women (Mania Papadimitriou) in 1940's dress comes and addresses "A" as if he were a child. "A," in turn, calls her "Mother," and he apologizes for missing her funeral. Once more, we find ourselves in a time-warp, where "A" has returned to "his" childhood. They board a bus that takes them to their old home in Kostantza, on the Black Sea. They enter the house, where all of "A's" deceased "relatives" are dancing. He greets each one in turn, as a well-mannered child would. A man in rags appears in the room: it is his "father" returning from prison. The celebration of the father's return and of the New Year begins. We are in 1945, and there has been a temporary switch in the roles: "A," as Telemachus, is greeting the return of his "father," Ulysses. This is a familiar style that Angelopoulos has used in "The Travelling Players," where this single scene, lasting some fifteen minutes in one continuous shot, covers five years as the characters waltz through the 1948 arrest of an uncle, to the 1950 New Year's Eve celebration, when the family is finally allowed to return to Greece. Through this scene, we now understand that "A's" memory has now merged with that of the Manakis' brothers."A" awakens in a contemporary hotel in Kostantza, with Kali at his side. They go to the harbor, where a huge statue of Lenin is being loaded on a barge, in preparation for traveling up the Danube to Germany. A tearful "A" tells Kali, "I cannot love you," just as Homer's Ulysses tells Calypso upon leaving her. "A" climbs aboard the barge, leaving a bewildered Kali on the quay. As the barge proceeds up the Danube River, groups of people on the riverbank stand in awe, many crossing themselves. This long traveling shot, accompanied by ethereal music, reminds us of the taxi ride in Albania. Toward the end of this shot, Arvanitis' camera, as if looking into Lenin's soul, circles slowly around the broken head of the statue, as a meditation on a ruin of the past.Arriving in Belgrade, "A" is met by his old friend, Nikos (Giogos Michalakopoulos) who, paraphrasing Angelopoulos' favorite poet, George Seferis, greats him with, "When God created the World, the first thing he made were journeys." To which "A" answers, "and then came doubt and nostalgia." They go to an old people's home, where they meet with an old man who was once in charge of the Belgrade Film Archives. The old man says that the Menakis' films are now with one of his friends at the Sarajevo Film Archives. Nikos and "A" end up in a café, drinking to the memories of old friends, and continue their voyage into nostalgia while drinking in the street. Obviously, Belgrade has become Ulysses' descent into Hades in the Odyssey, where he went to meet old friends and get instructions to complete his journey. "A" decides that despite the danger, he must go to Sarajevo. Nikos tells him to follow one of the many rivers which lead to it.Night time. "A," asleep in an old shack, is being awakened by a young lady (Maia Morgenstern, yet again). They are in Philipoupolis, Bulgaria, and the year is 1915. Morgenstern now assumes the role of Homer's Circe, the sorceress. She leads "A" to the river, and they escape in a small boat. The next scene shows them on a bright morning, floating down the river. The couple eventually lands on the shore of a village in ruins, and they walk to a particular house, which used to be the woman's. The house, gutted by a conflagration, is in ruins. The woman, grief-stricken, desperately calls out, "Vania!" the name of her husband, who must have perished during the village's destruction. In the debris, "A" finds a picture frame with a turn-of-the-century wedding picture, which most likely is that of the woman and Vania. In a somewhat surrealist scene, a table with a white tablecloth has been set up in the midst of the rubble, and it is there in the evening where "A" and his companion have dinner. In the background, the rumble of guns and sharp explosions can be heard.When "A" wakes up, he is naked. He wraps himself in a blanket, walks outside, and sees the woman washing his clothes. She comes back to the house and gives him some of her husband's clothes. The woman goes to the river and demolishes the boat with an axe, obviously in order to hold "A" captive, as Circe also tried to do with Ulysses. She returns to the house, and seeing "A" dressed up in her husband's clothes, pulls him to the floor and makes passionate love to him.In the next scene, in the darkness, "A" has escaped Circe. He is drifting down the river in a small boat. At dawn, he arrives in Sarajevo. He eventually finds his way to the Film Archives, where he meets a young boy who takes him to an underground market to meet the Archives curator, a Jewish man by the name of Ivo Levy (Erland Josephson). They walk back to the gutted Film Archives building, each carrying containers of water. The siege of Sarajevo has been going on for some time, and the whole town is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed. People risk their lives daily while fetching water at some of the still functioning water fountains, braving the bullets of Serbian snipers. Running back to the Film Archives, "A" explains to Levy the purpose of his coming to Sarajevo. Levy does have the three films and has tried repeatedly to find the correct chemical formula to develop them, but to no avail. . However, impressed by "A's" courage and determination, Levy says, "You must have great faith, or is it despair?" and agrees to try one more time.At the Film Archives, "A" goes to sleep and when he awakens, he meets a young woman, Levy's daughter, Noami (<i> Maia Morgenstern in her fourth role), a contemporary Nausicaa;. "A" is obviously struck by Noami's familiar face. By now, we understand that "A" has projected his past lovers in every woman he meets. Noami leaves, and "A," looking around, sees that Levy has already started to get the lab working again. Later that night, Levy wakes up "A" and brings him to his lab where the development of a roll of film is in progress. At last, Levy is successful. "A" and the archivist are overwhelmed with joy and they embrace: after almost 100 years of being captive, an image of Greece from the turn of the century has at last been set free.The whole place is now flooded with fog. Levy explains that this is a welcome time for the inhabitants of Sarajevo: because of the fog, the Serbian snipers cannot operate, and the population is free to come outside their shelter and enjoy the open air. As "A" and Levy walk past a cemetery, we see some people taking advantage of the lull to bury their dead, Moslem and Orthodox Christians alike. The two friends come across an orchestra playing in a small square. Levy explains that it is made up of young Muslim, Croat, and Serb musicians. There is also a small production of "Romeo and Juliet" going on.Further on, some couples are dancing to a rock tune. Out of the fog, Naomi appears and invites "A" to dance. The music changes to a 1950s tune, and Naomi has now become the Penelope whom "A" had left behind in Florina, long time ago.Levy's family joins the trio and they walk together in the fog toward the river, with Levy and "A" straggling behind. Suddenly, there is a noise of a car stopping, doors slamming, and men's voices. Levy tells "A" to stay put and runs in the fog to rejoin the rest of the family. We hear Naomi's cry of, "not the children!" as gun shots are followed by splashes as bodies are dumped into the water. The car leaves and there is total, eerie silence. Throughout, we stare at the fog, only able to guess at the events that have just occurred. As always, Angelopoulos lets us contemplate the meaning of violence, rather than actually showing it. "A" runs to the spot of the massacre where he first finds Levy dead in the snow, and then Naomi. He embraces her, embracing at the same time all the women he has loved and lost. In helpless rage and anger, he releases several heart-wrenching screams. He returns slowly to the Film Archives, passing once more by the still-playing orchestra.The final scene shows a blank projection screen where a film has just been shown, most likely one of the Manakis' films. Then, a close-up shot of "A," followed by a zoom backward, as he speaks Ulysses' lines to Penelope,"When I return, it will be with another man's clothes""A" has reached his Ithaca, but his odyssey may not be over yet, as he is now looking toward another Ithaca.

Review: With "Ulysses' Gaze", Theo Angelopoulos proves that he is one of the most influential figures in contemporary cinema.
The atmosphere of the film is admittedly extraordinary, aided by the terrific cinematography of Giorgos Arvanitis, Angelopoulos' collaborator since "Reconstruction" (1972).But the incredibly dense philosophical context of the film does not stop there, as Angelopoulos depicts the tumultuous history of twentieth-century Balkans with extreme precision and artistry.Harvey Keitel gave the best performance of his career, even managing to speak a few sentences in Greek without sounding too awkward.
Maia Morgenstern (as symbols for Penelope, Nausikaa, Circe and Calypso in her multiple roles) and Erland Josephson are also quite good, while Thanassis Vengos gives a tragi-comic note to the film, with his performance as the taxi driver.The fact that I am Greek (and therefore I am familiar with the political situation and able to identify with events better) admittedly played a major part in my interpretation of "Ulysses' Gaze" and non-Balkan viewers may find it difficult to identify with the film.
Somebody once said that DW Griffith is to blame for having a wide open horizon, full of possibilities, and settling for melodrama as the blueprint of the movie-going experience.However, once in a long while, a film comes along that breaks the mold and shows us once again what can be done.
If just for this alone, I am hypnotized.To make the effort, to absorb "Ulysses' Gaze", is a small step towards understanding the ruthless, constant plight of the people of that small corner of the world that is the Balkans.
Imagine.I have to say that "Ulysses' Gaze" is an incredible film, one of a few by which XX century's great cinema should (and will) eventually be regarded..
I think this is the good movie and that Angelopoulos was right on target when he showed his disappointment for not winning the Golden Palm during the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.
Balkans is a very beautiful region with wonderful landscapes and people with long history.
The lost innocence of the Balkans, which the hero, the director "A" is looking for throughout the movie, is offered to the viewer through the movie's wonderful cinematography.
Yes the movie could have been faster a.s.o. But hey, have you ever seen a better "glance" of the lost innocence of the Balkans?People who have visited or lived in this region can surely appreciate this motion picture even more..
This makes it a bit more difficult but the theme of obsession is well shown and it's A's quest that gripped me for the most part.The direction is great  beautiful scenery, wonderful mesmeric tracking shots and long takes make for a great visual experience.
You have to have a very deep insight in the history of Greece and the Balkan to understand this film.
Justly famous for being one of the last remaining directors still doing extraordinary cinema, in this film Angelopoulos celebrates the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, while, at the same time, looking with touching sensitivity into the lives of people molded by recent (and less recent) History.
In my opinion, this film offers the most complete, convincing and respectful take on the affected people's emotions, memories and relations among the (few) films, documentaries and books touching on the theme.The scale is epic both geographically and chronologically and since Angelopoulos manages to move easily between dream and reality (one of the biggest problems facing cinema directors), the personal stories are nicely interwoven with History.
Angelopoulos' characteristic long takes, in this instance serve more than giving the film a poetic atmosphere.
I had some idea through the music of what the film portrayed, but was somewhat put off by the three hours devoted to a movie about the Balkans.
I just wasn't ready for a drama about this violent and troubling history although I had adored the wonderful film "Before the Rain." Now after viewing the compelling and stunning "Ulysses' Gaze" I can highly recommend both the music and the film.
I was taken with the intense yearning and empathy of Harvey Keitel as the Ulysses of the quest, but especially struck by Maia Morgenstern as the female focus of the film.
Movies are an art form but like everything in this post-modern age, they cannot exist without the deep intellectual objective view point dividing the subjective experiences.
The story: A Greek film director caught in his own mid-life artistic and personal crisis goes on an odyssey to find lost footage by Greece's first filmmakers, traveling through the Balkans and revisiting his own life in the process.
This isn't an easy film, and if watched in the wrong mood, or without knowing what you're getting into (a slow, thoughtful 3 hour rumination on life, the past and art) could be very off-putting.
After about an hour we were both ready to give up in order to kill time some better way like playing monopoly or watching girls in infomercials for exercise equipment, but we decided to stick with it.
The plot-line is so wafer-thin, that as a consequence substories run into dead-end allies all the time, are stretched at full, with the actors giving the impression to be as bored as they expect later spectators watching this 'piece of art'.
Uncountable are the completely needless, seemingly endless stills of the landscapes Truly abhorring is the final scene, a real number one display of irritating movie-making by the director: you see nothing but fog, and you can only here the action taking place (how deep!
how symbolical!)I've seen some excellent movies about the Balkan (Kusturica's Underground for one, Before the rain for another) and I'm stunned to see this one ending up in the same category..
Harvey Keitel is in a catatonic daze throughout the film -- to the extent that I think he must have thought it to be "acting" simply to not break out in laughter at the pretensions of the director.
Seen this film at least 4 times and each time i'm both re-engaged by the scenes with which i'm very familiar, as well as seeing something new.I could go on about this and that...the bottom-line...you must see this film and take the ride yourselves...yes, it's an investment and yes, you have to "let yourselves go", simply plug in and enjoy the Taxidi(journey)!!Mr Kietels' work is unimpeachable, this i believe is as much his story as it is the story(in-part) of the brothers Manakia...and what a story that is...to think that they were chronicaling some of the most important events the world had yet experienced is in itself pretty incredible..
You might think that in making a film about Greek cinema or at least about a fellow film-maker Angelopolous would have made his greatest masterpiece but "Ulysses' Gaze" may be his most lugubrious film.
Perhaps working mostly in English didn't help or the one-note performance of Harvey Keitel as the exiled film-maker returning to his homeland in search of 3 reels of lost film by the Manakia Brothers was to blame.The structure is just as complex as anything by Angelopolous as Keitel moves back and forth in time but he also makes for an uneasy observer of Balkan history and the conflict in Sarajevo and ultimately the material feels less profound than I'm sure the director intended; there's only so much old ground he can cover.
This is truly an enchanting film about self-exploration, by the great auteur Angelopoulos.The movie is poetic, melancholic and lyrical (as expected from Angelopoulos), full of superb cinematography.
The scenes at the start, the Lenin statue in the boat, the Sarajevo scenes (orchestra and mist scenes), the old lady left alone in the town square, the family celebrating the new year...are works of pure art themselves.Can't believe it lost to Underground.
I am not giving it 10/10 because of the not up-to-par acting of Keitel and Karaindrou always regurgitating the same piece of melodramatic music again and again throughout Angelopoulos' films..
a director on a par with Fellini, and Kurosawa, and Bergman.Angelopoulos likes the long, slow shots that give you time to reflect on what you are seeing.
There are many self references to the director's other films, great modern greek poets, balkan history, and ancient greek thought and literature.
In this movie the roots are represented by the first cinematic footage ever filmed in Greece and Ulysses - Greek director "A" who had left his home country 35 years ago and now he is back and he HAS to find the footage.
There was one scene in the movie at the 2.5 hours mark that almost made me forget all the negatives - the orchestra on the snow in Sarajevo playing melody so marvelous that it could've easily been written by Orpheus whose music used to hypnotize every living creature on Earth.I don't regret seeing this movie and I will see more Angelopoulos' films in the future but I could've done something better with 173 minutes of my life..
But while the film might be exploring the history of the Balkans in a fascinating way, the execution is often times incredibly dull.
I have lived most of my life on Balkans, where I was born, among that many years in Greece, but still I cannot follow all the impressions of the director placed in the film.
If you enjoy films that are more cognitive you might like this one.Harvey Keitel does a lot of good films.
An example is at end of the film, at a New Year's dance: the protagonist dances reluctantly with his mother and then more assuredly with another character in a different time frame.
I had the impression that all the time he was saying: "O mortals, behold how much we, Greeks, have suffered over the century!" Yet, maybe except for Sarajevo at the end, there was not a single scene in this film, directed so that it will make one share a compassion for the things you see.
I do come from this region and I do have a pretty good knowledge on its history so this film cannot deceive me, but it would probably deceive thousands of viewers worldwide!
But definitely not from an artist claiming the standing of Mr. Angelopoulos!In fact, if you wonder how the infamous "deep-rooted tribal hatred" of the Balkans comes about - you might want to watch exactly this film as an example of an instrument to that end!
The main suggestion of the film is that Greeks are the only fine people on the peninsula (similar feelings run in every country in the region).
This movie is about a personal journey by one man looking partly for lost reels of film, and partly for his own past.The music and much of the cinematography in this film is quite beautiful; some of the images, such as the statue of Lenin floating down the river are absolutely unforgettable.The problem is that the director's artistic vision seems to be getting in the way of storytelling, and the result is a film with a lot of atmosphere and little substance.Anyone who claims to really understand this film is probably afflicted by the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome: too embarrassed to admit that this artful film just doesn't make any sense.Harvey Keitel and Maia Morgenstern seem to float in and out of various characters without any explanation.
It's a good movie, but it just goes to show that a director should not work in a language that isn't their first or that they are not 100% fluent in.
Although it takes the Balkan conflict and in particular the plight of Sarajevo as much of its background it is not a war film.
The central character's search for the missing reels of the earliest Balkan film footage is made without regard for his safety through war zones to the extent that he hardly knows where he is at times.
Up until 1995, all of Angelopoulos' films had for their subjects Greece, Greek history, and Greek myths.
He continues somewhat with "Ulysses' Gaze," but this time the filmmaker travels beyond the Greek borders into the neighboring Balkan countries.
In "Ulysses' Gaze," history is present, but contrary to "The Travelling Players" where it was the theme, and the group of players rather than any individual character was the "star" of the film, in the present film, history is now relegated to the background, and since "A's" odyssey through the region is the main story, we see a more conventional character in the personage represented by Harvey Keitel, and also in the different characters who cross his path.
The score is a counterpoint to the cinematic action, and establishes an emotional climate, combining with the image to express what cannot be said in words.As the title of the film announces, Angelopoulos is taking us on a journey through the tumultuous Balkan region and on a time-travel through its 20th century history.
It is, after all, where "the Great War" started, in Sarajevo, where the film ends eighty years later, among more massacres and mayhem.
I would like to emphasize that it is useless, and even detrimental to the enjoyment of "Ulysses' Gaze," to try to see in this film the retelling of Homer's Odyssey in a contemporary context.
Rather, the Odyssey is merely a reference point, and the missing films become the journey's Ithacan destination.On one level, "Ulysses' Gaze" is a search for the roots of the cinema of the Balkans, and more generally, of the cinema itself.
"Ulysses' Gaze" considers the importance of film in recording history, and its potential in influencing its future development.
Angelopoulos also suggests early in the film, through the events taking place in Florina, that film, not the Hollywood-type schlock, but thought-provoking film such as his can influence people's lives.The second theme is of course, the odyssey of "A" through the Balkans, and as Ulysses was, "A" must also be clever to overcome all the journey's obstacles in order to reach his goal, the lost film reels.
Finally, the film is also a Balkans history lesson.
But in Ulysses' Gaze, Angelopoulos knows his history well: the real Balkans are not, nor have they ever been, a heaven of peace.
In these respects, Ulysses' Gaze is undeniably an Angelopoulos film, and certainly one of his masterpieces.
Angelopoulos made an incredibly beautiful, poetic and deep film.
Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos's 1995 film Ulysses' Gaze (To Vlemma Tou Odyssea) is the first of that director's four films that I have seen that is not unequivocally a great work of art.
But, there are some missing narrative elements, some poorly scripted moments, and a too slow dramatic movement, especially in the latter third of the film, which takes place in the city of Sarajevo.The basic tale is that a nameless exiled Greek-American filmmaker, played by Harvey Keitel (and referred to as 'A' in the DVD credits, and in many reviews, although nowhere in the film is the character's name mentioned), returns to the Balkans after thirty-five years, and is seeking to find three lost reels of footage from the earliest known extant Greek film, made by the Manakis Brothers (Yannakis and Miltos) in 1905.
Some trimming of more pedestrian scenes by editor Yannis Tsitsopoulos, some neat Ozu-like elisions (which Angelopoulos makes expert use of in other films), and this film would have been a great film, if just shy of a masterpiece, due to several small forced moments of overacting, and soliloquies tinged lavender in their prose: 'If I should but stretch out my hand I will touch you and time will be whole again,' uttered by Keitel.
In this country, the most virulent review came from none other than that noted lover of Spielbergian tripe, Roger Ebert, who among other things, wrote: What's left after Ulysses' Gaze is the impression of a film made by a director so impressed with the gravity and importance of his theme that he wants to weed out any moviegoers seeking interest, grace, humor, or involvement.It is an old fact about the cinema- known perhaps even to those pioneers who made the ancient footage A is seeking- that a film does not exist unless there is an audience between the projector and the screen.
Yet, we never see this anecdote's stunning imagery play out; it's only related via words, or the imagination, therefore all the more effective, in the way a great film like My Dinner With Andre is.
Would that more people had that quality which Angelopoulos so manifestly owns, in the best moments of this work, and his other masterpieces; for then even flawed but excellent films like this would get their proper due..
I like the recent surge of films that reset the bard's works into modern times.
Ulysses' Daze : So, Mr. A (could refer to "ailing" more than "Anglo" !) was searching for the first movie ever shot in the Balkans as the originality /the creative essence that has been destroying to lose everything because the foolishness of the modern human which led to war/ the final absolute madness that ended everything and everyone.
Great achievement for a movie that is !Ulysses Razes : (Angelo-mad-about-himself-poulos) as the maker of it is the only one who sees its joy, the only one who feels its trueness, the only one who finds it the greatest film ever made, and doesn't believe that anybody may feel anything but that.
Because the movie was fine, what it wasn't that fine it was the whole amount of time I had to stand to see it finally reach something like an end.
There are a few really innovating ideas (like how time goes by in a same scene without cuts, and also the character assuming the personality of one of the ancient greek filmmakers), and the last 30 minutes were really interesting (despite everything), the misty scenes are truly well recorded.
I know I said it before but making movies last so long is an abuse of power, for the director, that is (for the viewer it is obviously a bad echange of trust).
Cut down the manifesto, Angelopoulos; the film is real good but viewers have a limit in their resistance.