O vasilias

Perhaps, one of the most important and enjoyable Greek films i've seen in the last ten years..Excellent performances(especially yiannis zouganelis is great), well-written script and effective direction from a very special, for the Greek very average standards, auteur. A film, obviously influenced by Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, that could be a masterpiece if it avoided some evident and exaggerative situations and symbolizations in the end. Nevertheless, this is a movie which deserves our attention and belongs to that rare category of Greek movies which should be watched outside Greece. It's a shame that in Greece didn't work commercially, in addition with other fake and cursory big productions like Politiki Kouzina..

This movie was not so much promoted here in Greece,even though it got good actors , great script and rather good photograph was not a so called "blockbuster" movie in my Country. The movie itself is very powerful,it's about the hard time that a newcomer had to go through when he returns in his home-village after been released from a 5yo prison time(drugs) The end is rather sad.... Mourikis is trying to keep up with his part and he handles it pretty well... Lambropoulou is great and very sexy in a strange way and of course Hatzisavvas is for one more time close to excellency... 7 out of 10 because very few Greek movies can make such an impression!

Indeed fellow mate from Greece, few Greek films can make such an impression. I don't really give a s##t whether it made a 'blockbuster' success - what I would really like for this film is to be given a chance for an international watching (the DVD i saw has English subtitles option) and that's great because it deserves to be seen outside Greece as well.

An accurate study on the culture and ethics of Greek country, especially that of a small community like a village. All acting is excellent, music also fits the mood great, the plot (based on a real story) is gripping, everything is perfect in this film which has nothing to do with the rest of the wanna-be Greek crap that gets wide distribution.

Grammatikos is a great visionary, his other film I have seen, "Apontes" is also great - but didn't make me the same impression as this did. Add that Giannis Zouganelis (comic legend, but also good actor) is also in it and you got a winner - by any measure - either you're a enthusiastic film buff (arty or not) or your an occasional film-goer, you have to see this great Greek film to appreciate it, and to see that THERE IS Greek cinema that has something to say, if rare.

And yes, there's woman skin for all to see, but fortunately not enough (and not filmed SEXY enough) to make the viewer distract from the true thing.

All thumbs up (hands and feet), easily one of my best Greek films so far!

the king in this film is what can be called here in Greece freak, marginal misfit and other words with negative connotations, but in the film is clearly the vehicle of the director to criticize the provincial mentality of the people and Greece by extension. the director must have a leftist ideology or anti-establishment and doesn't hesitate to show it in his films, in APONTES is more clearly stated than in VASILIAS.My problem with his film-making is that he tries to teach me a lesson(if you succumb to the ruling class ideology you become an a*****e or a person that attracts his despise) i don't disagree with him but thanks for the lesson i already had it.Nevertheless although the film gets a little boring and predictable after a while, but is still worth seeing for the indigenous population who is bombarded by worse films in the multiplex. better to see a clichéd old fashioned anti hero drama than some junk mainly from the states.

True story...it happened in the middle of 90's in a village in Peloponnesus