Purely Joyful Movie!

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

On the surface, this is deeply flawed; there's some awkward dialogue, Harvey Kietel is OK, not amazing, the female characters are thin. But it's so damn full of breathtaking images, brave cinematic choices, multi-minute long shots, and a heart rending climax, that the flaws don't seem important some how. 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. I can certainly understand the mixed reviews. 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. But accepted on its own terms, warts and all it's an amazing odyssey; visual, emotional and thematic.

Ulysses' Haze : There isn't one way to make movies. All the artists are wholly free to choose (and responsible to) the style of making what they want. But the viewers also are free to choose. Whatever the movie was, wherever it came from, whoever made it, there is certain feeling, idea, power that CAN affect you, or not ! Although nothing and no one is the same, but ironically, it is great fact that your own feelings for one movie or artist are the same of somebody out there. So, on the basis of that, let me see what's so hateful about this movie so its style.Ulysses' Maze : By all means, it's different. But even if, in its kind of difference.. It's so awful. What kind of movie, any movie, that alienates its viewers ? Ulysses' Gaze is so dead. It is one unforgettable invitation to watch death and live it ! Maybe that's exactly what was the tremendous genius Theo Angelopoulos thinking of ?!First off, it's beyond boring. The heavy thick pace will definitely distract you so powerfully. Oh yes, it's slow to give you the chance to contemplate, but certainly it managed to sleep you, since either there isn't much to think and contemplate about. Even your poor try to stand it, would lose. I lost the last strength of patience while the long very damn long sequence of Lenin's statue. OH MY GOD, that was too hard to follow. It compelled me to disbelieve anything this apoplexy says. Once the interaction is gone, the whole deal is finished. I found myself literally out of it, well.. It pushes you to that ! Not to mention the theatrical style (UGH !) how can I bear someone who's working at "film" to turn it into "theater" ?!, or to make the whole screen as white smoke, (I love radio but not like that !). It's not renewal inasmuch as incapacity...Or Harvey Keitel as the lead ?? Did you see him talking to the girl when she was running next to the moving train?, did you see him laughing when he found the movie?, did you see him at the end scene? : Great comedy !. His face was stony, and his charisma didn't impassion. De Niro was smart enough to reject the role. Basically how to say anything through that dumb excuse for a script? Detached-fantasy-journeys into one's life could tell about nation's history but not in this transcendent, indigent and cold way.Surely the attempt to narrate differently was promising but the absurd plot could've been more dexterous, enjoyable, and less dull. Many sequences were full of braggart stupidity masquerading as sublime art (the black umbrellas' scene for one instance!). If you think of it as poetry, then it's the most adolescent, silly, and alleged cinematic poetry I've ever seen.It takes a super fairness to admit that I liked the music, the cinematography. Though all the rest (the acting, the editing,..etc) was barrenly tasteless in a way that didn't give you chance not to endure it for a second watching, but to endure it for a first one ! What bothered me the most, other than being in front of it for foul full 176 min, that the one and only (Theo Angelopoulos) was so angry (and confused !) when this film lost Cannes Film Festival's main award !! That got on my nerve crazily ! Ulysses' Laze : Well, any artiest must look at his work to know where he was wrong. But Mr. Angelopoulos will never do such a thing. He's a god, an idol for himself. So he can never be wrong ! And all of his blind lovers can't (or don't dare to) find anything may be slightly wrong with his work. He's the great yet the greatest. I challenge any enamored of Mr. Angelopoulos to tell me what possibly could be not good about this movie. Actually the ultimate replay would be : nothing ! There is nothing like it so naturally it's wonderful ! Whilst there is nothing like the plague, though it's not wonderful ! 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. And all the intellectual's efforts will lastly make nothing. WAW, the only problem is that it had been made by originality that was effectively destructive for its movie (as well as us !) to lose everything it says or shows ! They're so simple words yet in the smallest letters ever, that is strenuous and unfruitful in the same bad time. Like a strong nightmare it worked not for the sake of it, but for making me refuse to watch it (read: stand it) ever again ! 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. It exemplifies what kind of distending ego that we have here ? Mr. Theo, I'm sorry to say it but...The pleasure was all yours.Ulysses' Ease : Is it a spectacular classic for someone out there? Clearly not for me. I hated it, hate it, and I'll hate it as a typical example for a work that was murdered by its maker's hopeless megalomania.It's not a tableau about the human's havoc; it's one about a film's havoc.

#beware of the SPOILERS, they bite# Here we go again, as if I didn't have enough trying to understand Joyce's Ulysses now comes another guy and decides that more meanings can be thrown upon this myth. Honestly, what is it with Homer? This movie is long. Long? This movie is as long as a breadless day, yeah ok you can't explain a whole myth in just 100 minutes but 176 are definetly too much. What's wrong with all this people like Stroheim and Griffith and Antonioni and yeah this greek guy too?!Is it maybe that they believe themselves so worthy and marvelous that they decide wihtout any remorse they can go on and on forever? Of course, they are free to do so, but does it not ache at least a bit in their hearts. 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. Well, anyway; Angelopoulos designs his tale calmly and with a few jewels sparkling here and there. Seeing the same actress over and over again swits fine the movie, it is like he is arriving always to the same woman, but always unable to love her. Some similarities with the book arise all around, but faintly, leaving it always open to your own judgement. 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. The final slaughter is moving, although not unexpected at all, in fact it's pretty obvious. The girl playing her sort of Calipso/Penelope/(..) was convincing, but the actor seemed to be trying to understand what on earth was going on, which is probably the whole point of his performance, and also of the movie... But STILL there's a problem with the TIME here. 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). The movie is kinda poetic, but it is not *that* beautiful to have justified all the waste of time; for exemple: the Lenin statue scene was revoltingly long, and so were many conversations, specially the ones in (where is it?that soviet city...sorry, I can't remember)...well, actually: ALL the conversations were a complete void of useless words. Nevertheless, the river scenes are truly magic, and so are the Sarajevo ones; specially the one with the mad patiens scaping from the hospital: see, I agree that one needed its actual 5 or 6 minutes, but well, one in a hundred... Is it that directors think that long=brilliant? Cut down the manifesto, Angelopoulos; the film is real good but viewers have a limit in their resistance. And nobody said that a long poem is better than a short one.

i can't think of any movie maker as pretentious and arrogant asthis greek cinema amateur. Theo Angelopoulus should be jailedfor doing this and for what he has been doing for years.I wasted £2.5 to rent the video and even though is a small amountof money I should have asked for a refund or, even better, to getpaid for watching this film. It is so boring, without any interest at all and it last for so long. It isa real nightmare. Harvey Keytel is out of place, the still shots lastforever without any reason, there are too many pretentious scenes,the movie lacks quality, etc... You'd better have the control with fast forward handy !!The worst thing is that Theo thinks he is a poet of cinema, that noone is above him, that he has the last word in cinema. It isunbelievable that someone could even think about producing hismovies. Theo is nothing but an arrogant lunatic, someone whohas lost the plot and who lives isolated in his own world.