Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
2h 49m | PG-13
An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.
Director: Theo Angelopoulos
Studio: Paradis Films
Genre: Drama, History, War
Video: 720p
Cast
Harvey Keitel
as A
Erland Josephson
as Ivo Levy
Maia Morgenstern
as Ulysses' Wives
Thanasis Veggos
as Taxi Driver
Giorgos Mihalakopoulos
as Nikos
Dora Volanaki
as Old Woman
Reviews
This is a journey film—both internal and external—set across Albania, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Greece. The story follows a director on a quest to find the lost film by the Manakis brothers, purported to be Greece's first motion picture. However, his search leads him not to a cinematic treasure, but to the slow death agony of the Balkans themselves. His journey culminates not in discovery, but in depression, pain, and a profound sense of defeat—a feeling powerfully symbolized by the recurring image of a fragmented statue of Lenin.