Ulysses' Gaze

• Harvey Keitel: A, the filmmaker
• Erland Josephson: S, the museum curator
• Maia Morgenstern: The woman who met him
• Thanasis Vengos: Taxi driver
• Giorgos Mihalakopoulos: friend and journalist
• Dora Volanaki: Old woman

Ulysses' Gaze is a film drama of Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos from the year 1995.

Action

A is a Greek director, who lives in the USA and comes back to his homeland to present a film. After decades of absence, he no longer recognizes his European home. In search of the lost movie roles of the brothers Manakis, Greek film pioneers who probably had in 1905 filmed the first Greek film at all, he is mistaken as Odysseus by an alienated Europe, which is named after the political change in search of itself and its history. His journey leads him on Albania to Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and finally by the Serbs in the besieged Sarajevo. In Sarajevo, the people can only walk in the fog, as they are otherwise threatened by snipers. S initiates the Sarajevo film museum and holds three rolls of film of Manakis brothers hidden. At this place A raped finally finds the virgin negatives from a bygone era.

Background

Gian Maria Volonte first played the role of S, but died during the filming and was replaced by Erland Josephson.

Reviews

• Lexicon of international film: A multifaceted and highly evocative cinematic meditation, in which individual history, country and film history penetrate. Sometimes surreal and inexplicable, often bitter and upsetting, the film is another impressive fragment in Angelopoulos narrative cosmos.

Awards

The film was honored at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival with the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize. At the award ceremony in Cannes Angelopoulos was extremely disappointed about the jury's decision not to have given him the main prize of the festival. The Palme d'Or went instead to Emir Kusturica's Underground. A film which also plays in the Balkans, but the film of Angelopoulos diametrical opposite is in alignment and style. As Angelopoulos the price of Andy García was presented with, he just said " If this is what you have to give me, I have nothing to say. " ( "If that's what you have to give me, I have nothing to say. " ) and left the stage.

Other awards: