Weeping Meadow, The
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Movie Reviews of Weeping Meadow, The
Movie Review: A Grecian Threnody
Summary: 5 Stars
THE WEEPING MEADOW ('Trilogia I: To Livadi pou dakryzei') is writer/director Theodoros Angelopoulos (with influences from Tonino Guerra plus assistance from Petros Markaris and Giorgio Silvagni) creating a personal vision of the 20th century. The incredibly gifted Greek poet of a filmmaker mirrored the life and death of his own mother whose time on earth spanned a century and elected to capture the 100 years of sadness in a trilogy of films: The Weeping Meadow is Part I and details the years 1919 through 1949. It is a masterwork.
The film opens with what will be the trademark look of the movie - vistas of lonely people in a nearly monochromatic color space that uses water, both from rain and the collected results of rain. A group of refugees from Odessa have landed by a river in Thessaloniki where they must attempt to reconstruct their lives. Among them is a family - a wife and husband with their young son and a three-year-old orphan Eleni they have protected. The entire movie seems to be in slow motion, but that is just the studied, unhurried rhythm of Angelopoulos' direction. As time passes we find that Eleni at a very early age has just given birth to twin boys while she has been sent away for the family's appearances: the father is the young son of the family. The story progresses through the World Wars, the civil wars, the influence of Hitler and Mussolini, the natural disasters of floods and disease, the social disparities of class, the rise of unions, the fall of democracy - all mirrored in the family that is trying to make the chaos of living in Greece resemble some sort of order. The young man is a musician and once he and Eleni have reunited with their twin boys, he decides he will go to America, the land of Promise for poverty stricken refugees, to work and make enough money to bring Eleni and the twins to America. But in his absence the progressive civil unrest and poverty the three endure in his absence results in the ultimate dissolution of the family.
The story is less important than the moods evoked. The cinematography by Andreas Sinanos is a long gallery of miraculously composed, beautiful images: the cortege on the river, the flapping white sheets behind which we discover musicians, the constant vistas of the ocean and the river, the village and the battlegrounds burn themselves onto our visual fields and into memory. The gorgeous music that accompanies this symphonic work is by Eleni Karaindrou, mixing folksongs with wondrous symphonic moments. The cast is superb: they manage to create very specific people despite the fact that we rarely see them up close. But in the end this visual treasure is the extraordinary work of Theodoros Angelopoulos. If this is Part I of a Trilogy (at almost three hours running time), we can only imagine the power that will follow in the Parts II and III. Experiencing THE WEEPING MEADOW takes patience and a long uninterrupted period of time; the rewards are immeasurably fine. In Greek with English subtitles. Grady Harp, February 07
Movie Review: A Masterpiece Fully Worthy of the Word
Summary: 5 Stars
Fate and History are not presented as flesh and blood characters in this first part of Theodoros Angelopoulos' "Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow," but the presence of each is so tangible that they could be exactly that. The central characters, Alexis and Eleni first meet as children driven together by the destruction of the town of Odessa, Greece, during World War I. As they grow up, their lives take one fateful twist after another beginning when a teenaged Eleni gives birth to twin boys. Growing into a young woman, she marries a man old enough to be her grandfather but, at the wedding ceremony's conclusion, abandons him to run off with her elderly groom's son, Alexis, who has grown into a gifted musician.
Eleni's hope is clearly to reclaim her adopted twins and live a life of domestic harmony and loving devotion but the abandoned groom will have none of that as he hounds their every step until he literally drops dead. History also proves an enemy to their happiness. With the coming and passing of the Second World War, the young lovers go through a series of transformations as social outcasts, struggling artists, desperate parents, and political refugees. This spellbinding odyssey takes its greatest toll on Eleni, who loses her husband, twin sons, and sanity to the ravages of twentieth century warfare. She becomes a kind of "Everywoman" of the first half of the twentieth century, an era when countries worldwide repeatedly called men to war while women became casualties of the grief, poverty, and physical destruction left behind.
From its opening scene of Greek refugees from Odessa moving toward a river, to its conclusion, "The Weeping Meadow" floods the screen with some of the most eerily surrealistic images in cinematic history. Were it not for the progression of a precise timeline moving from one World War to another, and providing a solid structure for the overall drama, a viewer might easily get lost drifting along in such haunting images as dead sheep hanging from the branches of a tree, a funeral service conducted in row boats alongside rooftops, or a crowd of wailing women running toward a field of dead "husbands, sons, and brothers." The images take on even greater intensity framed by composer Eleni Karaindrou's brilliant soundtrack.
That this first part of Theo Angelopoulos' Trilogy is an indisputable masterpiece is a fact that speaks for itself. The only question is whether the great director will be able to achieve in parts two and three the same sweeping grandeur and majesty that fills every frame of "The Weeping Meadow."
by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of "The Harlem Renaissance Way Down South"
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)
Movie Review: Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
In some ways, this film takes the best parts of the work of Federico Fellini, Terrence Malick, and Michelangelo Antonioni, and stews them until they melt into a work only Angelopoulos could make. However, what separates Angelopolous films from most other films by even some great filmmakers, is his screenplays. This film was written by him, longtime Fellini collaborator Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, and Giorgio Silvagni, and even though- like the other films of his I've seen, this one is spare in dialogue, the story coheres because of the way the scenes are written to allow the actors' expressions convey what words need not. And, like Yasujiro Ozu, Angelopoulos is a master of ellipses- never fully explaining certain things in a film, nor deliberately not showing the viewer things that would be standard in a more linear film.
The film's cinematography, by Andreas Sinanos, is spectacular, from the long shots that follow characters from afar, to well-composed foregrounded scenes, to the uses of color throughout. The film starts with muted, almost sepia tones, and grayness, then exhibits flashes of color, here and there, while mostly staying in dark greens, blues, and browns. This heightens the grander moments, such as the bloody death of the musician in the white sheets. The use of water is also wonderful- from the film's reflected shots at the opening, through the constant rains and floods, to the last shots overlooking the water- a far better use of imagery than a similar shot which ends Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark. In fact, the scenes of the flooded town were a set built in a high, dry portion of Lake Kerkini, which by March, would rise and submerge the set.
The musical scoring by Angelopoulos's longtime collaborator, Eleni Karaindrou, is solid, mixing folk songs with classical compositions, all in an understated manner- excepting a great scene where the son auditions with his accordion. Yet, several times in the film, there seems to be an odd noise- like jet sounds in the aural background of some scenes. Is this symbolism or a flaw? Even if a flaw, it is a very minor one, for aside from the aforementioned scenes there are numerous other great scenes in this picaresque film that coheres in the Negatively Capable way John Keats claimed great art works; such as when Nikos dances at night as a saxophone plays, or when Eleni, in fever, babbles on and on of the same things.
Yet, at the center of this great film is not only the ellipsis of information, but the ellipsis of self- the exile from everywhere, a theme that defines much of Angelopoulos's work, even if it does not define his art, for that is always on target, and brilliantly wrought. The Weeping Meadow is no exception to that claim.
Movie Review: Beautiful and deeply moving
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps the most emotional of Angelopoulos' films so far. While it occasionally flirts with melodrama, it's ultimately heartbreaking while losing none of the film-maker's usual formal rigor and visual beauty. A couple try to find a way to stay together in the face of wars, both civil and international, as well as fighting small town prejudice and rejection. Not an easy film, and some of the history may be confusing unless you happen to be up on the history of Greece in the 20th century (I'll admit I'm not), but very worth the time and effort.
As with most of Angelopoulos' films, the edition you want to find is the Greek 'New Star' release (it has english subtitles). This line was supervised by Angelopoulos personally, and the image is definitely a step up. The sad things is, inexplicably, those editions were only released for a short while, and they've become very hard to find.
Movie Review: Incredibly beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
Having lived in Greece for a year, I wanted to see this film which covers the history of the country through the eyes of a single family line. It starts with the expulsion of the Greeks from Turkey and contiunes through the civil war of the 1940's. But history is not the final point. This film contains scenes of striking beauty and poetry such as I have hardly ever seen. One wonders over and over how these scenes were created and photographed. It is awe inspiring. The first of a trilogy. One can only hope that Angelopoulos completes the task.
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