Cubussoli
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Chirphymium
It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Maegnas
This is not a comment to the movie itself. The bits I have seen show at least an accurate portrayal of rural Greece in the late 40's along with the political "turmoil" of the time. Acting was above average in general, although some members of the cast, notably Malkovich, could have done a slightly better job.So, is this propaganda? Of course it is BUT with more grains of truth than your average propaganda film, especially an American made. Yes, Mr Gatzoyannis (unless he is ashamed to use his real family name and resorts to "Gage") had lost his mother during the civil war. He is supposed to be one-sided, who wouldn't? He wrote a book about it, good for him. Someone made a film based on it, good for them. And now, many of us are bickering about what it is, propaganda or not, who are the good and who are the bad ones and so on...A commentator before said that war is the end of civilization. True! A civil war though makes an "ordinary" war look quite civilized and "noble". Americans surely have their experience, they have gone through a terrible civil war. We, Greeks, have our experience which, sadly, is more "fresh" - lots of people that lived through it are still around to talk about it. Kids being taken from their mothers' arms to be transported..where? Brother killing brother (literally!) and generally bringing down whatever was once dear. Who's the bad guy? Which brother gets moral high ground? The one who took to mountains, kidnapped young ones to put them through a grim life behind the Iron Curtain, laid waste to his land and his home? Or the other, who after suffering all that, imprisoned those left behind (the majority of which were not part of the armed struggle and suffered along too), exiled them to desolate barren islands (there are more than we need of those in the Aegean), made them "dance" with cats in a sack (interesting how democracy, or "democracy", can be as horrendous as communism or any other totalitarian regime) and generally held them at the "border" of society until 1974. Who gets praise and who gets blame? You don't know? I think you do! History was always written by victors, this is no exception. What is an exception in this case is that this particular "victor" (Gage) abstained his country's drama until it "suited" him to be a part of it. Having lost a loved one, a parent, in war is no unique to him, millions of people did! Did he live the ongoing "plague" that the civil war was? From the comfort of his house, half a world away. It is almost as if I, who have never been to the US, write a book about the drama of the Indians. Whatever moral high ground he possessed he lessened being that "distanced" from the whole scenery of it and its consequences. In short, this book and film portray HIS side, not his ideology's side but his personal side. It is easy to place blame, very hard to do so for one side only! I will not go into the politics of that period, that is for another place and another time. Decent film, worth a viewing if not for anything else for an accurate portrayal of the "scenery". No stars awarded as I have not seen it all, just bits and pieces.
moviemaster
Perhaps the biggest problem with most of the reviews is that they take a partisan view of the Greek Civil War of the late '40s. The view presented sympathetically in the movie is that of the loyalists. But to call them the "Freedom Fighters", since they wanted the re-establishment of the monarchy seems peculiar for Americans. As for the book and movie "documenting" what happened, it presented one side and who could blame Gage for promoting his vision of the truth when the Communists killed his mother. But war is war- the complete breakdown of civilization. Quite often both sides do horrific things, just as happened in Iraq recently, where we are certainly far from being blameless. but don't wantonly kill as many as the "insurgents." Or another Civil War, Viet Nam where incidents such as Mi Lai were sign that we were not "saviors." The facts of the Greek Civil War are presented below, regarding the forced population of children: "In 1948, the two conflicting sides evacuated children and young persons from the territories they had conquered in the northwestern part of the country. The royalists transferred up to 30,000 children to the south of the country, and the communists sent about 25,000 children across the border to Yugoslavia where they were primarily accommodated in shelters in several Yugoslav republics. In the period afterwards, they were most frequently sent to the so-called countries with popular democracies – Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Germany. Each of the conflicting parties accused the other that it deported these children against both their will and that of their parents, i.e. relatives. The two sides were also accusing each other that the other side was doing this in order to perform an ethno-national transformation – i.e. "to turn the Macedonians into Greeks" and vice versa. "http://www.newbalkanpolitics.org.mk/napis.asp?id=19&lang=English So take the movie for what it is. A presentation of one side...not necessary propaganda for right wingers or the tale of "freedom fighters." Rather the sad tale of a boy who lost his mother in a Civil War. Not a bad movie, but not brilliant.
ratontheroad
I don't generally award 10 stars. But this true account of a mother's struggle in post-war Greece has haunted me for over twenty years. Since becoming a parent myself, I have often thought of her great sacrifice. It is a great mystery to me why this fantastic film has virtually disappeared from circulation. It's one of the most perfectly realized films you'll come across. The acting, direction, and photography are superb. It's worth owning just for Bruce Smeaton's brilliantly unique musical score. I've tried, without success, to find Greek music in a similar vein. Much of the opposition to the film in 1985 came from critics who insinuated an anti-Marxist political bias. They missed the point. The film depicts the story of a mother removed from the political machinations that are grinding around her. Eleni wasn't a reactionary, she was a loving mother. Unless film buffs rediscover "Eleni" the Hollywood Left will have buried a beautiful gem, which conflicts with their accepted version of history. Goodnight and good luck.
Mag-13
Other people commenting on this film complain about its being mere propaganda against communism and supporting fascism. What a lot of baloney. It's about mothers and children, and about how, no matter what kind of brawl is going on, the men run to the hills, leaving the women and children behind to be brutalized. And it's about how one woman lost her life because she refused to give her children up to the state, no matter who that state was.
