After watching Angelopoulos' "The Gaze of Ulysses" last night, the shock and emotion in my heart could not dissipate for a long time.
The nearly three-hour film follows an American director A's arduous journey to find footage for his first film in Greece. His journey began in Greece, into the Balkans, from complex Belgrade into war-torn Sarajevo. What is his purpose? It is to find the first gaze in the history of Greek cinema, and also to find the simplicity and innocence of the first gaze on the film.
During A's journey, we and he helplessly witness the constant repetition of history, the reunion and parting of relatives and lovers, various ideological confrontations, political censorship and persecution, homes, theaters and the most basic elements destroyed by artillery fire. living resources. But even so, people still bravely insist on their first gaze, and there are still music, drama, and people sticking to the film on the ruins.
Angelopoulos bravely led the team deep into the Balkans, risking his life to capture this immortal masterpiece, in order to show the true suffering of this journey. After watching this movie, I sighed how frivolous and narcissistic the previous Hollywood tribute movies were. Whether it's Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" or Toro's "The Shape of Water", even everyone failed to capture the soul of the movie and could not bring real moving and understanding. More recently, David Lynch's "Mank" has been more of a let down.
Unexpectedly, on the famous movie rating website Rotten Tomatoes, "The Gaze of Ulysses" has a surprisingly low expert score compared with the audience's very high score. Several film critics who gave very low scores actually used "narcissism" to describe this sincere work. How ironic! Hollywood film critics are not as bright as the audience. It can only be said that they forgot their first stare.
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