El Greco

This film is the biggest production of Greek movie history.It cost 10,5 mil$ and was directed by a Cretan director, who wanted to tell the story of the biggest Cretan painter, and one of the greatest painters of all time, El Greco. The passion ,the film was made off, is profound and you can spot it all over the screen.The music by Vangelis is superb,cinematography makes the film to look like a live painting, performances are great and extremely vivid, sets and costumes are glorious.The movie was filmed at three countries, Greece, Italy, and Spain, which where the countries El Greco lived and created his masterpieces.If you know the work of Greco, this film is a grate opportunity to learn a lot about his life and where his passion came from.

The tag line of this movie is "Can darkness overcome light?"

This is a film that tries too hard at "grandeur" and ends up nothing more than pompous dreck. El Greco's life and work are worthy of much better than this lifeless, corny exploration. The film boasts some of the most laughable, cringe-worthy dialog to grace the big screen -- a pretty devastating deficiency in what is supposed to be a "character film". In fact, I had serious trouble finding lines that were not shamelessly cribbed from dozens of period pieces which preceded this. I was half-expecting someone in the audience to break out with "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition", as this material screams for the Monty Python treatment. Someone should tell the makers of "El Greco" that it takes more than costumes and passable set-pieces to create a period film ; most importantly, it takes believable dialog and characters. The protagonists in El Greco talk like persons living in post-Enlightenment Europe (and very often, like outright contemporaries of ours). I am sorry, but no Renaissance painter (much less El Greco) would try to defend his art in front of the Inquisition by stating that "all art is blasphemy anyways". A good indication of the quality of the film is the manner in which Theotokopoulos is presented as painting ; like most childish depictions, he doesn't paint, so much as "attack" the canvas, presumably because all great painters fence with their canvases (rolls eyes). Incidentally, rolling your eyes is something that you will be doing quite often, should you choose to suffer through the countless clichés in the film. Ranging from the "talented person in a foreign land", to the two dimensional "villain", and the "love for the villain's daughter", this film manages to take a historical personality and turn him into a typical Hollywood-derivative cliché. Quite the accomplishment. The narration, too, is particularly tiresome and trite ; I usually love movies with narration, and yet, with this one, it seemed like they managed to hit all the wrong, hackneyed notes from start to finish. And all of this without taking the ridiculous, deus ex machina excuse for a conclusion into account.

Widely promoted as "the most important Greek production ever" (of which there seems to be a new one every year), El Greco seems bound to achieve considerable commercial success in the Greek market. But it is the kind of movie most people will claim to like, and no one will bother to see twice. Which, after all, is the true indicator of a film's appeal. We weren't expecting loud explosions and car chases on a production about El Greco ; but a reasonable, intelligent plot and dialog that would not make you squirm in your seat in embarrassment would have been nice.

Not recommended. For those that missed it, worry not. You'll have another "greatest Greek production ever" foisted on you by the Greek television channel-sponsors to look forward to next year.

The screenplay is at times good, the sets and costumes passable, the story is good and nearer to the truth than most biopics -it even attempts to wove social and philosophical themes into the life of a gifted artist and his relationship with the man who admired him but could not become him.

But, the photography is standard fare -as if it were made for television. The cinematographer fails miserably to grasp the opportunity afforded by telling the life of a painter in authoring with light and shadow and colors. It seems they did nothing but use textbook light and print what was in the camera without any of the care that makes Spielberg's cinematographers worth applauding.

The direction is honest but it falls into the trap of directing actors in what to do and how to do it, instead of allowing them to breathe their own life into the film, for themselves. The actors, most of the time are the slaves of the cinematographer as puppets in ever-changing dramatic photographs.

Nick Ashdon portrayed the main character as well as he was allowed by a limp and insecure director -unfortunately watching Nick Ashdon as El Greco was an exercise in trying to remember that I was not watching Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love.

Juan Diego Botto as Niño de Guevara must have, in rehearsals, given director Smaragdis an expression from a certain camera angle that the director liked a lot, so he must have asked Botto to keep repeating it throughout the movie.

There are some really bizarre moments of editing that make you wonder whether the director was interfering in the editor's work without the skill to do so, or whether the editor sneaked-in a few cuts that the director missed before the release. Then again they might have both been trying to make a dramatic statement but the efforts bore no fruit.

This film is a genuinely honest effort by a genuine Greek director and crew to make a labor of love in telling the story and the soul of a great man. I urge you to watch it with this in mind. Because otherwise you will watch a film where the director, despite his passion, just didn't have what it takes.

This was a big thing when it came out, fellow Greek readers will attest to that. It was aggressively promoted as both 'expensive' and 'prestigious', it seems a rare thing for Greek cinema. The story went that the filmmaker had to mortgage his own house to finance his vision, proof of bold artistic merit. The movie played theatrically for what seemed like endless months - to make back its partly government-subsidized budget the rumor goes, since little interest materialized abroad. Schools planned 'educational' trips to the cinema, probably for the same reason.

How small it seems now. You can see loftier production values on TV, and probably much better acting and a less grating parade of profundities.

What really offends though is the spirit behind the work. It's not that it is dull and completely without insight about its own craft. It is both these things, but that's a simple incompetence. I mean, here is a film about a man of extraordinary vision who wanted to paint with light, and the 'inspirational' film about him is wholly ordinary, as lush and spiritual as perfume. What poor use of Aris Stavrou, who once liked to puzzle (next to Nikos Nikolaidis) about texture and light.

It's that Smaragdis hoped to capture a bit of Greek soul (not necessarily historical 'truth') and journey with it abroad, a noble aim. Capture us as we dream ourselves to be, feisty and passionate Zorbas, made pensive by centuries of hardship - a bit like Kusturica did for the neighboring Yugoslavs.

The film is set in those centuries of foreign rule, Italian and Ottoman elsewhere. There was no Rennaisance allowed in those times, it would be good to note, no lofty national art as they could develop in the salons of Western Europe. Our painting was religious. Our theater was song and dance, from Thrace to Crete. The collective soul had to pour that way, which is why they still persist and resonate so strongly in these parts - as elsewhere in the former empire.

You will know it's all phony by watching the scene of proud Cretans dancing after a skirmish with the Italians. You'd think, if there was a bit of ancient Greek song rising from the earth, it would be in that scene. If you are ever in the region, go to a Cretan wedding or folk fest, in fact anywhere in rural Greece during times of celebration. Then watch the posturing in the film. Dismal.

If you want to know a bit about these things, to see actual Balkan spirit, seek out a man called Sergei Parajanov. He was Armenian who made films under Soviet rule, but it is the same soul he captured.

First of all, I don't think it is at all a DVD movie but an enjoyable film to watch at the cinema. The aesthetic of the film captures the audience's attention throughout the film. I personally think that the photography is excellent in the film as well as the direction. It tends to be a bit slow and without a lot of action but the audience understands that the film is not about action as it is an artistic and cultural film that tries (successfully) to bring out the souls of the characters to touch the audience. I agree that Dimitra Matsouka's performance was not strong enough but the performance's of Nick Ashdon, Laia Marull and especially Juan Diego Botto are well appreciated. The scenery and costumes are an accurate capture of the time period and beautiful to watch on screen. The plot is original as there are certain twists that one would not expect (for example El Greco's relationship with women)and the music is exceptional. The film is generally a great attempt on showing the potential quality of the Greek film industry throughout Europe. I think that there must be a good reason for 'El Greco' already winning 8 awards including best director in the Thessaloniki film festival!!