Rent Ulysses' Gaze (1995)

3.6 of 5 from 61 ratings
2h 49min
Rent Ulysses' Gaze (aka To vlemma tou Odyssea) Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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Synopsis:
Harvey Keitel stars as a Greek-American filmmaker who returns home after thirty-five years in search of a film made by Balkan cinema pioneers, missing since the turn of the century. Echoing the myth of Ulysses, his quest takes him across the Balkans of the 1990s, encompassing Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and a devastated Sarajevo - now lands of discord, fanaticism and war. En route, he encounters places and people from his past, including several incarnations of the same woman whom he loves and loses again and again Theo Angelopoulos' acclaimed film is an epic chronicle of 100 years of Balkan conflict and a highly personal celebration of a century of cinema.
Actors:
, , , , Giorgos Mihalakopoulos, Costas Santas, , Mania Papadimitriou, Giorgos Konstas, , , Angel Ivanof, , Vaggelis Liodakis, Gert Llanaj, Agni Vlahou, , , ,
Directors:
Producers:
Theodoros Angelopoulos, Eric Heumann, Dragan Ivanovic, Herbert G. Kloiber, Saimir Kumbaro, Piro Milkani, Ivan Milovanovic, Amedeo Pagani, Lucian Pricop, Giorgio Silvagni
Voiced By:
Pemi Zouni, Evgenios Spatharis, Tom Sears, Alexandros Mylonas, Florence Manoiloiou, Stoyan Lalofski, Geoffrey Graham, Kiryakos Argiropulos
Writers:
Theodoros Angelopoulos, Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, Giorgio Silvagni
Others:
Theo Angelopoulos
Aka:
To vlemma tou Odyssea
Studio:
Artificial Eye Film Company Ltd.
Genres:
Classics, Drama
Collections:
Best Film Quests and Adventures, Cinema Paradiso's 2023 Centenary Club: Part 1
Awards:

1995 Cannes Grand Prize

BBFC:
Release Date:
26/03/2012
Run Time:
169 minutes
Languages:
Greek Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles:
English
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 1.78:1 / 16:9
Colour:
Colour

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Reviews (1) of Ulysses' Gaze

For the Journey - Ulysses' Gaze review by ST

Spoiler Alert
29/03/2020

This fascinating but flawed film follows the journey of a distinguished Greek film director as he travels through the Balkans in search of three lost reels of film from the first makers of cinema in Greece. Harvey Keitel plays the director who at times shifts into the past and begins to get entangled in the complex overlaying histories of the countries he travels through -- Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, eventually arriving in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of the 1990s. I found the settings and images of this work utterly compelling, and got drawn into the drama of the unfolding journey -- the spectacle of the titanic fragments of a dismembered statue of Lenin being transported on a river barge are surely some of the most arresting in European cinema -- and yet this trajectory seemed to overwhelm the more individualised aspects of the film. The characters seemed to me like bit-players; tokens or types inserted into the narrative but without agency, depth or colour, limiting the impact of the film's thesis on European history. Keitel himself struck me as incredibly wooden, struggling to wrest meaning and nuance out of lines of lacklustre dialogue, at odds with a non-native English speaking cast throughout. Nevertheless, the film is worthwhile -- not flinching from an incredibly brutal and unexpected denouement which has an impact far beyond the sum of the rest of its parts.

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