Ulysses' Gaze (Madman Director's Suite) - The Memorable TV DVD Review

Distributor: Madman Entertainment (Director's Suite)
Region 4 | PAL | 127 minutes
Available to buy
Release Date: 21 June 2006
Director: Theo Angelopulos
Reviewer: Alan R
Extras: Yes

ANYONE IN IT WE KNOW?

It stars Harvey Keitel as the unnamed lead character.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT THEN?

The Manakia brothers were film pioneers at the start of the 20th century. Yannakis and Miltos Manakia toured the Balkan countries documenting (on the new innovation of moving-film) events that seemed to be of some interest without any regard for the political dictates of the time. In the present day (1994) Harvey Keitel is an American film researcher who has been asked to help a Greek film archive make a documentary about the brothers.

It is a time of upheaval in Keitel's life and he sees this as an opportunity to divert him from his problems. He uncovers evidence overlooked by previous film historians of three reels of film shot by the brothers in their very earliest days that were never developed. He sets about trying to track them down treating it as a personal journey of discovery . He follows various leads which take him to various countries in the Balkan states and eventually to war-torn Sarajevo.

The "Gaze" of the title is from the idea of likening movies to a gaze into the past with a film historian being a collector of vanished gazes.

Is It Any Good? Unfortunately the main plot element of the missing reels does not carry the film - there are long indulgent sequences that deal with the personal background of Keitel's character with some perplexing flashbacks that don't really make it very clear what's going on. At times you get to thinking the film has completely forgotten about the lost reels plot until at last they get back to it again for a while.