Why so much hype?

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Crappy film

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I have seen this movie and it is very gripping and entertaining, unfortunately it does not tell the whole story of Greece and what the resistance actually was and who they were fighting. In particular this story is one that as usual suffers from lies of omission and the simplification of very complex political issues into good vs. evil. Perhaps Eleni was faced with an evil leader of the left, however do we know who and why the left was actually fighting. Quickly, Greece had a King and Aristocracy that was controlled by a military dictator before WWII, Greece was pivotal to British interests in Egypt (Suez Canal and Middle East Oil -Iran) and basically Great Britain backed this military dictator. When WWII broke out the king and dictator fled and it was the Greek people who fought the Germans and Italians, England actually fought with them at the end also. Problem, average Greek person did not want King or fascist dictator back (this is the communist group - which they were really leftist not Stalin communist). Greeks wanted to govern themselves and this is not what Great Britain - they wanted King and dictator back and guess who won . The King came back until the late 50's and 60's were Greek people won their independence. On mean idiot that was communist does not mean that all of the things the left was fighting for were wrong - this is pure and simple propaganda.

I haven't seen the whole movie, only some parts. I must though make some observations. I think it would be too innocent for someone to believe that films, any kind of films - from "Judge Dredd" to "Bowling for Columbine"-,do not embrace certain ideas, do not have a very specific and clear ideology. Ihave read the comments on this movie and to be honest I am a bit annoyed by some of these which happen to be a part of my country;s history. It is never easy to view things in a civil war, it is very clear though that in the Greek civil war(1945-1949)there were two sides; there was the former government, which during the triple occupation(German, Italian and Bulgarian)was "absent" in Cairo (just to note that the former government handed over those communists who were then in exile to the Nazis) and there was the people,who were starving to death, who were tortured, who were sent to concentration camps or to factories in Germany to work. The two sides are very distinct and so were the interests each side served. When Greece was liberated by the Germans, the former government came back to claim the power. the people fought against them, not just the communists, for they wanted a free country, where the people would be the one to decide for its fate and not some so-called allied forces!if it hadn't been for the English and the American, Greece would have been a totally different country. Let me just say that thanks to the American and English intervention the first Napalm bombs were first tested here, in Greece, against the Communists and those who fought for dignity and for an independent nation. Now concerning the film, when these "allied forces" are described as liberators and when the communists are described as the biggest threat in human history, I am sorry to disappoint some of you but this is a clear political view!!And I am also sorry to disappoint some of you but since we live in capitalism(don't be afraid to use the word!), which is an economical and political system, we shouldn't believe that art, culture, our everyday habits are not a reflection of this particular system. Besides every system tries to protect itself! Finally, I would like to add that I do like films and I do like art, but I don't like to be manipulated in a way that my personal judgment is put aside. PS one last observation concerning history facts and propaganda: in "La vita e Bella" starring Roberto Benini, the last scene shows American troops liberating the prisoners of the concentration camp in Poland!well, I guess 20.000.000 Russian killed in the second world war would be quite surprised, if not anything else.

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.

As another reviewer wrote, this is a movie about a family, not about politics - even though it is terror that causes that family to be harmed. As the mother, Kate Nelligan is absolutely superb, shining, wonderful. As the son as an adult, John Malkovich is curiously detached. Again, although the movie was first rate, I question the decision to alternate time periods with a parallel narratives throughout. I think it lessens the impact. I see no reason the story couldn't be told chronologically, to greater effect. Those two reviewers from Argentina and Greece who wrote that the movie was propaganda are being silly. Neither this movie nor anyone denies that the Communists (and those democrats defending the former king and government who had returned to power after the war - the king wishing to reign but not rule) fought the Nazis during the Second World War. This movie does not take place during that war - and doesn't refer to it. Further, when the Second World War ended, there WERE no native Greek fascists fighting in the Civil War - when a reviewer writes that this was a fascist war, it's crazy. In the movie, you hear the Communists using the term, "fascist" in the same loose propagandistic way that, say, Prime Minister Tony Blair is referred to as a fascist - falsely. As the Soviet Union's proxies looked to be gaining in the Civil War, Britain asked the United States to participate in an effort to aid the Greek government with financial aid and weapons. over this and the Communist insurgency in turkey, was the Truman doctrine of containment of Communist totalitarianism born. These are simply facts. Moreover, the fact that the Greek Communists took tens of thousands of children from their parents and shipped them off to Communists countries such as Albania and Czechoslovakia is obviously well-documented in the book and movie. However, as I wrote above, the movie simply looks at a human story of a mother and her love for her children. Kate Nelligan makes the movie heartfelt, moving, powerful. She should have won the Oscar for this performance.