Weeping Meadow, The
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Movie Reviews of Weeping Meadow, The
Movie Review: Weeping Meadow
Summary: 5 Stars
Great movie. Have to see it many times to really appreciate the cinematography. Fabulous scenes.Movie Review: The History of Greece
Summary: 4 Stars
The first image we see in Theo Angelopoulos' "Weeping Meadow" is an extreme long shot of a man driving a horse and carriage. The camera follows him from the distant, never going in for a close-up. Instead we just pan across the landscape, which looks run down and abandon.
This is a typical Angelopoulos shot. Another director may have put their camera closer to the subject and pan across and still be able to get the condition of the village, but not Angelopoulos. Angelopoulos is interested in the big picture. He wants us to get a feel for the village, he wants the characters and the landscape to soak into our memory.
It is precisely because of shots like this wider audiences will never appreciate his style. They will complain his films are too long (this film is over two and a half hours), his camera barely moves, he lingers on his subjects long after the "point" of the scene has been made...ect, ect.
But if you find you have the patience to sit down and watch one of his films you will be rewarded. I refer to Angelopoulos as the mastery of imagery. No filmmaker has captured such images in the history of cinema which has pleased my eyes more. Oh I know there are other great directors, Herzog, Pasolini, and Renoir but Theo Angelopoulos just seems to go down like a smooth shot of vodka (or should I say ouzo?). There is something I find refreshing in his work. Namely his ability to simply let the story move at its own pace. He doesn't seem constrained by a film's running time.
In "Weeping Meadow" we get what is suppose to be the first part of a trilogy dealing with the history of Greece. This film takes place from 1919 to 1945. But the film is told from the point of view of a young couple as we see how world events affect their marriage and challenge their love for each other.
The movie is filled with memorable moments. Many of which take place by the ocean. I'm reminded of a funeral scene, where we see the casket in a boat drifting along the tide as a procession of boats follow it. Then there is a scene where the village is flooded. We see families escape as the water has reached their roofs.
These scenes will linger in your mind as well, but, if there is one flaw to the film it is that the politics of Greece are not a prominent enough part of the story. Only at the end of the film, when dealing with WW2 does politics come front and center. Before that I honestly could not tell you what historical moments were taking place.
The film follows the young couple, Eleni (Alexandra Aidini) and her husband, whom isn't given a name (Nikos Poursadinis) as he searches for a job. He is a musician who gets a job playing in a band led by Nikos (Giorgos Armenis). But as this goes on I couldn't begin to tell you what was going on as far as Greece's history is concerned.
If Angelopoulos really wanted to tell this story correctly I think he should have abandon this trilogy idea and made one long epic movie.
Other films have attempted to tell their country's history through a few characters. Right now I'm thinking of Bernardo Bertolucci's "1900" and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz". Also the more recent "Best of Youth".
"Weeping Meadow" doesn't have that epic feel to it. Had Angelopoulos put more of Greece's politics into the story I would have enjoyed it more. As someone who isn't Greek the idea of seeing a film about the country's history, from one of my favorite directors, excited me. But I didn't gather a true sense of Greece or it's history. Maybe the other two films in this trilogy will expand upon this aspect.
Angelopoulos has told the story of his country before. He made a film about Alexander the Great and even films such as "The Traveling Players" and "Landscape in the Mist" touched upon Greece's history. In fact at times I thought of "Players" as I watched this film. "Players" also followed a group of entertainers as Greece's history was being made just as we follow the group of musicians in this movie.
"Weeping Meadow" despite everything is not a bad movie. It is worth seeing especially if you are a filmbuff or an Angelopoulos fan. The reason the film works mostly for me is because of those startling images he gives us. He really is the master of imagery.
Bottom-line: Theo Angelopoulos's ambitious tale of the history of Greece doesn't quite live up to what could have been. The movie doesn't give the viewer much of an understanding of Greece's history but it is filled with such memorable cinematograpy and images it makes it hard to resist.
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