Reviews (16)

The original Zorba music.
What a pleasure to finally be able to see this great movie again. I never find it in video stores. Melina Mercouri is fantastic. Jules Dassin is a real know-it-all American do gooder who makes me cringe. The dancing and music are so Greek, and I love Greek dancing. Great acting from the Greek cast. You could practice your Greek, though subtitles are provided. There is also plenty of English, if you aren't used to reading subtitles. Actually anyone who knows this film is accustomed to subtitles because you like lots of foreign films.

An oldie but goodie
Never on a Sunday uses the wonderful, bigger-than-life talents of Melina Mercouri to show us the secrets of good living in her native Greece. She an independent prostitute who beds only those she is drawn to, not just those who have the money. Director Jules Dassin plays Homer, the American who is determined to make a moral and honorable woman of her. Um, as you might guess, he's fighting a losing battle from the get-go; it's like a battle between joy and responsibility - which would the average sun-kissed Greek prostitute choose? Mercouri is marvelous as she evades his best intentions while at the same time showing him the finer things in life. And then there's the memorable bouzouki theme song, which is happiness itself.
Watch it with a lover and share a bowl of pasta putanesca.

An All Time Classic With A Great Score
When the Carol Burnett show was on television, she had a skit about foreign films where the stories were mistranslated. When she did the take off on NEVER ON SUNDAY, Burnett's Illia did all that Mercouri's Illia did in the movie, but the lines matched those of a young school teacher collecting money for supplies rather than those of a prostitute. The skit piqued my interest in this film and could hardly wait a while until I saw it on video, since I was probably only ten when the Carol Burnett skit first aired.

Perhaps what gives the movie its appeal is the fact that Illia, a gorgeous Greek prostitute is not the stereotype of a prostitute. She is not a miserable waif in need of salvation. She is a free spirit who cannot, or perhaps better stated, will not be tamed. The role is played masterfully by Melina Mercouri who won an award at Cannes for her performance. Homer, the American writer who wants her for himself is played by Jules Dassin. The film is set in a small Greek fishing village after World War II amend the locals give the film a great deal of flavor. There is plenty of Bouzouki music and Illia sings a rather seductive version of the well known theme song.

The DVD has a trailer for the original film. In some ways the commercial for this film is humorous since it has very little to do with the actual plot, but I suppose since this film was so risqué in its day, the trailer had to be vague.

Since the film is in black and white, it has a historic flair, but the tale itself is timeless, which makes this a true all time classic.

ARISTOPHANES ......
WOULD APPLAUD HEARTILY ... and IF he were around today, he'd probably write about her [pity though that in ancient times - she'd be played by a man !] Tough act this would be to follow since the Mercurial Mercouri holds the patent ~ and what a patent! A Greek slant on "My Fair lady" [Pygmalion} and perhaps just perhaps Miss Mercouri is perhaps too intellectual for this role? Nah! She's in splendid form! So's the rest of the talented cast. Great soundtrack too.

It's the old tale of the foreigner [a smitten American tourist] trying to 'reform' a local 'lady' who is quite multitalented in her own way - along the way quite a few noses are bent, glasses are broken [a great running gag in the taverna] and hearts are broken and mended.

Shocking for its period [1960] just THAT towel draped around her neck and no visible sign of anything else??

ENJOY this one - a rare find!

HAPPINESS IS.......
This is one of those rare b&w films that I think, wow, if it had been in color...but nevermind that. "Never On Sunday" is fine the way it is. A simple, intoxicating tale of an American writer named Homer (director Jules Dassin) who comes to the Greek isle of Piraeus to write and study the Greek culture. He is amazed at the laid back, carefree lifestyle he sees and the seemingly amoral ways of the local shipbuilders and fishermen. To them, drinking, partying and prostitution isn't bad---it's a fact of life, a necessity. They worship the local independent prostitute Illia (Melina Mercouri) who makes them all happy. She never sets prices and chooses only the ones she likes. She's as wonderful, exuberant and exotic as the Greek isles themselves. Homer cannot believe she's actually a (gasp) hooker and sets out to do the Pygmalian thing with her---educate her and "free" her from her lifestyle. But she is clearly happy with her life and sees nothing wrong with it. Homer has his job cut out for him. But the local bad guy Mr.No Face, who owns the local apartment row and overcharges the prostitutes who live there, wants Illia's business which she refuses to give. He cuts a deal with Homer---two weeks to educate her and get her out of business or else. But of course nothing goes exactly right. "Never On Sunday" is sexy, happy and romantic. The bouzouki music is infectious and won an Oscar in 1960 for film score. Everybody drinks ouzo and dances and sings and vies for Illia's favors. The location filmed cinematography is beautiful. The story is lyrical, like the music, and bittersweet. Dassin is wonderful as Homer, a ga-ga eyed intellectual naif with only the best intentions. But it's Mercouri as Illia who IS "Never on Sunday". She is spectacular as the earthy, wise, good-hearted earthmother/... who can teach intellectuals a thing or two about life. She knows the Greek Tragedies and can tell their stories at the drop of a hat---HER versions: "all these bad things happened and then everyone was happy and went to the seashore". But that's Illia and that's "Never On Sunday". A joyous, harmless slice of happiness you can watch again and again. The DVD print is crystal clear and sharp and the sound perfect for all the bouzouki music you'll be humming for days afterward. The spirit of this film is "ENJOY". So, please do. It's lovely. ... Read more

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The Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, winner of the top prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival for Eternity and a Day, will never build an audience of casual filmgoers. But then he doesn't mean to. Demanding, difficult, portentous, Angelopoulos makes films in his own deliberate style: sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes mystifying. When he's at his best, as in the beautiful and devastating Landscape in the Mist, the results can be spellbinding. Ulysses' Gaze is a typically fascinating, typically long (three hours) work. Harvey Keitel, moving through the film at an intense murmur, plays a Greek filmmaker known only as "A." After many years in America, he returns home for an odyssey in search of some early film footage shot in the Balkans, a quest that leads him through that war-torn area and finally into the bombed-out city of Sarajevo. Angelopoulos establishes such a dreamlike rhythm, and his images (like a giant stone head of Lenin, floating down a river) are so striking, that adventurous filmgoers should find this experience absorbing, if enigmatic. On the other hand, Roger Ebert described Ulysses' Gaze as "a numbing bore." But even he would probably admit that no one else on earth makes movies quite like Theo Angelopoulos. --Robert Horton ... Read more

Reviews (29)

A haunting search for purpose and for meaning in life
Truly I am struck deeply each time I watch this film. Though I do not purport to understand fully the lines of the plot (the rapid shifting between languages and character transitions make it exquisitely challenging to follow), the cinematography is hauntingly gorgeous. The image of the massive statue of Lenin being lifted by crane onto a barge, and floated down the Sava River stays with me even months afterwards.

Harvey Keitel is cast as a Greek-American film director/producer, returned to his Balkan home (north Greece), seeking lost reels of film shot by the Manakis brothers. He believes these to be the very first cinema images of life in the Balkans...in searching for these films, he is metaphorically searching for his own identity...a sense of deeper connection with a past with which his ties have been broken. Hungarian actress Maia Morgenstern is cast as a myriad of women whom Keitel (his character is known only as K...almost Kafkaesque in its enigmatic nature, I find this particular element...) meets throughout his journey through the Balkans...Greece, (FYR)Macedonia, Bosnia.

Though it may be that I am struck by the "Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome" in purporting to understand a kernel of Angelopoulos' intent in this film, I find it particularly effecting because I, like K, am on a journey...both to find out where I am from, and to see where I am going...and perhaps these twain shall meet somewhere beyond my present horizon. In this regard, we can each only hope...more than a film, Angelopoulos has succeeded in creating a successful reflection of what it is to live...it is to journey, ofttimes in search of ourselves...but more than the search, it is the journey that is important...we all come to our Ithaca in the end; only our paths differ.

A Masterpiece
"A numbing bore?" If Roger Ebert really said that of this film, all i can say is that there is something terribly wrong with Roger Ebert as of late. I beleive he has given his thumbs up to movies like "The Sum of All fears" and "Sam I Am" (this last one litterally being nothing more than a Star Bucks comercial shot like a shampoo comercial).
Ulysses' Gaze is a wonderfull film that like any great pieace of art can be interpreted in any number of ways, depending on the viewer.
The pace of the film is certainly slow, but not in the boring sense but in the character and context building one. In other words, the director is in no hurry to finish the film at the expense of any of the subtlty and humanity necessary to paint his canvass. And in order to drive certain themes home, which unfortunatly are indeed universal, he creates scenes and shoots images that are so charged with emotion and symbolism that anyone who has ever lived in a country with similar situations as those in the balkans can readily identify with them.
This is a powerfull film and its subtlty is worth emphasizing. He really manages to capture the essence of specific situations without ever being at all explicit.
(For those of you interested as well in photography, it is interesting to note that one of the most beautiful scenes in this movie, that of the barge carrying a statue of Lenin down a river, was also used by Josef Koudelka for a picture that appears in his "Caos" book. [ I do have to admit, however, that in my personal belief the scene is a little too long...The one scene of the movie that i personally would have cut a little shorter.Josef Koudelka managed beter results i think]It would be interesting to know if they both, the director and photographer, simply coincided in wanting to incorporate the dismanteling of this one particular statue of Lenin, or if they had previously arranged to both be there...At any rate, the resulting photograph by Koudelka is in my opinion, one of the most beautiful photographs ever.)

One of the top ten movies of the nineties if not the best!
This film deserves all the supreme adjectives that you can imagine. Much more than a simple film ; this work will let you thinking due its deep and disturbing ideas involved. It deals about the human condition , the seek for the epic sense of our life , the bitter sight about the western civilization , the decadence of Greece in the actual world , the weight of the memory , the old images of our parents , the nosthalgy for our beloved country , the vulgarity vs. the aristos , the tragedy of a world that has lost its center , the insanity of the Balcan war , the reflexion about the ancient mythology , the fall of Lenin statue in the Danube , the unforgettable sequence between Kaitel and Josephson in that dark room in which Erland Josephson thinks in loud voice : I{m a cinema lover ; a collector of lost images!. This is a mythical journey through the devasted and hopeless Europe.
I don't know why , but i reminded all along the film this statement from Curzio Malaparte : "Europe is dead , because its sons are born from dead mothers". This thought emerges from Malaparte's pen when he watches a dying mother when his baby is born at once!
Let me tell you something . I've watching almost the films of this poet : Theo Angelopoulus , this film maker is at the level of the giants , I mean Tarkovsky , Bresson , Bergman or Fellini . And if you inquire me about his masterpiece this one wins by far .
Angeloulus thought in Al Pacino at first , but Pacino was busy in another work . So he decided for Kaitel and believe me : this became a wise decision , because Keitel has been one of the giants actors all over the world . And in this case Kaitel makes a personal tour de force and breathtaking acting .
There are so many issues involved in this picture that I hardly may comment in this brief review. But if you want to convince by yourself about an artistic film , this is for you.
Cannes : Grand Jury Prize winner 1995.

pretentious blaha
One of the most pretentious attempts to overdo things, this one is utterly boring. It is too long. One hour of it is totally useless. And a display of artistic ego and navel gazing. Nothing else. Unfortunately, it also became one of those movies that rightly did not pass thru the meticulous Cannes Festival, and the prize went fairly to Kusturica's "Underground".
It is supposed to be about Bosnia and the conflict in Balkans, but what we see an aimlessly wandering Keitel - who apparently does not know why he is in that movie - and lots of meaningless shots and empty monologues.
That said, let us get the record straight. Theo Anghelopoulos is one of the greatest film makers and humanists ever, and this is frankly his worst movie. Because he is uneven. He created a masterpiece: "Eternity and a Day", which is a must for movie lovers.
His "Theatre Company" (1975) and "Landscape in a Mist" (1985) are other jewels. Demand and wait for them instead.

The Search for Meaning
This film never made it completely through my DVD player - I suffered through about 3/4 of it, and I'd had enough.

Two things struck me - actually, they crept up on me slowly, since this film has absolutely no forward momentum.

First, is everyone in the filmmaker's world so miserable? Why is a "meaning for life search" film have to be about how horrible and meaningless our world is? There's so much beauty and love, art and perfection to be enjoyed. Yet, if you believe this masterbatory offering, everything is dingy greys and blues, and no one experiences joy. How sad.

Second, it's very common for a craftsman (I can't call the filmmaker an artist, because this isn't art) who doesn't understand his material to hide behind a threadbare curtain of the enigmatic. It never works. Never.

And it doesn't here. Having the lead actor walk around for hours and stare at things, sitting in little chairs looking at the ground, this isn't storytelling. It's nihilistic self-aggrandizement.

And that went out with Andy Warhol. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Masterpiece...
This low-budget little film received international acclaim due to it's excellent acting and haunting & simple photography. The film is set on the island of Hydra and tells a tragic love story.
There's never been anyone like Ellie Lambeti since, this is a true Gem.

Absolutly magical and emotional
The Girl in Black "reveals Elli Lambetti as an actress of truly tragic stature." The story of a young Athenian writer on holiday who falls in love with a girl of impoverished gentility and is unable to respond to her. A disaster provoked by spiteful peasants shocks him into a new awareness of his own involvement in life. The film has a simplicity and a vibrancy that make it stand out from even the best of foreign films.

The best Greek movie ever made
This is the best Greek movie ever made. It' so touching and cultural. ... Read more