You might think that in making a film
about Greek cinema or at least about a fellow film-maker Angelopolous
would have made his greatest masterpiece but "Ulysses' Gaze" may be his
most lugubrious film. Perhaps working mostly in English didn't help or
the one-note performance of Harvey Keitel as the exiled film-maker
returning to his homeland in search of 3 reels of lost film by the
Manakia Brothers was to blame.
The structure is just as complex as anything by Angelopolous as Keitel moves back and forth in time but he also makes for an uneasy observer of Balkan history and the conflict in Sarajevo and ultimately the material feels less profound than I'm sure the director intended; there's only so much old ground he can cover. It isn't a bad film; I don't think Angelopolous could make a bad film if he tried and visually it is very impressive. Rather it is simply a great disappointment from a man who can justifiably lay claim to being one of the ten greatest directors in all of cinema.
The structure is just as complex as anything by Angelopolous as Keitel moves back and forth in time but he also makes for an uneasy observer of Balkan history and the conflict in Sarajevo and ultimately the material feels less profound than I'm sure the director intended; there's only so much old ground he can cover. It isn't a bad film; I don't think Angelopolous could make a bad film if he tried and visually it is very impressive. Rather it is simply a great disappointment from a man who can justifiably lay claim to being one of the ten greatest directors in all of cinema.
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