Watch The Weeping Meadow For Free

best movie i've ever seen.

A different way of telling a story

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I viewed this movie at the TIFF in 2004. It was the first film I ever seen their and I have been going back every year since, hoping to see something that was as moving. By far one of the greatest films I have ever viewed. The cinematography, the acting, the script all worked hand in hand. At times when the dialogue was silent you were still captivated by what was being shown on the screen.The movie is long, but I did not lose interest once. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Angelopoulos at the premier of his film and believe me for a movie buff like me it was a great honor even thought I did not realize it at the time. I believe that this film should be on every bodies must watch list if you are looking for a movie that is deep.I have since viewed a lot of movies and have yet to fond anything that I believe is as important.

Theo Angelopolous, the Greek director, undertakes the colossal task of putting in a film some thirty years of history in his country. The director has a poetical way to present his story, which was written in collaboration with some of the best minds of the business, namely, Tonino Guerra, Giorgio Silvani and Petros Markaris, one of our own favorite Greek writers.The result is a complex canvas in which Mr. Angelopolous paints for us, the viewer, in dark colors that gives us an idea of what the country went through during that period. In a way, the director seems to be taking an outside position in recounting the tragedy his country lived by photographing in long shots almost every frame of the film. Of course, this being his style, it suits the poetical way in which he conceives the basic idea.There are lots of moments in the film that take the viewer's breath away by the beauty of the composition of a particular scene. It's clear the director uses a lot of symbolism in trying to get his point across. The opening scene with the returning people from the Odessa massacre being one of the most effective things in the film. The rowing boats carrying people affected by the flood is another. The many white sheets waving in the wind, are just the highlights of the story, the way Mr. Angelopolous conceives it.The actors act as an ensemble. Alexandra Aidini, who plays Eleni, the woman at the center of the tragedy, makes quite an impression. The excellent fading cinematography by Andreas Sinanos gives a rich texture to the film, as well as the music score by Eleni Karaindrou, that greatly enhances the mood of it.While this film is definitely for a general public, it shows great moments of brilliance created by Theo Angelopolous working at his best.

I can pretend no knowledge of cinematography or Mr. Angelopoulos. But I know Greece and I love her people. In July my 14 year old son and I traveled to Cappadocia, Turkey in search of some remains of the neighborhood where his great grandfather Iordanis lived until the great exodus of Anatolian Greeks in 1923. Reading the summary of the film (refugees from Odessa) I thought that perhaps I might learn something more about the forced migrations of modern Greeks. If I did not have a home in Rhodes, had I not been to Greece 28 times in as many years, were I not familiar with dozens of islands and cities in Greece and if I had never enjoyed the friendship of these ebullient, life-intoxicated people, I might have believed that this lamentation had something to do with modern Greece. As a professor at a New Jersey State college, let me assure you that I am familiar with the history of the period covered in the film. Indeed, my wife's uncle was murdered by the communists during the communist grab for power. My mother-in-law lived through the Italian invasion and German occupation...barely. These characters on the screen speak Greek, they listen to Greek music but who are they? No, they are not even vaguely Greek. Of course they are not people at all but simply allegories. They are that which the artist invents when life does not entirely fit or is inadequate to his perception of how it was or should have been. All represent some aspect of post WWI Greece that greater outside forces consigned to a fate they didn't deserve. As we joked in the late 70's in America: "The Revolution didn't happen." For an ideologue/artist, this is no joke. It's in fact grounds to put us through two and a half hours of torment. And it's all because the various Powers (Eleni's soliloquy of "guards" in different colored uniforms) didn't allow the generation after the "aristocrats" of 1919 (Spyros) to follow the call of peace and freedom (the music of Nikos and his fellow musicians, i.e., the Movement, the Cause). This dark, surreal revisionism smears the true and heroic efforts of the Greek people to sustain their lust for life through the tragedies of the 20th century, to achieve more than any of their Balkan neighbors, to have become so politically evolved and globally integrated.

Angelopoulos' films are definitely an acquired taste. His style eschews mainstream conventions, resulting in his films being perceived as nearly the antithesis of Hollywood's films, with which most people are familiar. So familiar, that they cannot imagine a different cinematographic approach to cinema. To Hollywood's rapid cuts and furious pacing Angelopoulos opposes through long takes, leisurely pacing, and composed tableaux. He uses long shots, which de-emphasizes individual performances, unlike Hollywood's close-ups and star system. Hollywood tries to emotionally seduce its audience, while Angelopoulos looks for means to occasionally distance his viewers from their emotional responses. Angelopoulos forces his audience to participate in his films. In the case of the acting, he presents his characters "from the outside," his intent being to compel his audience to study and explore their identities."The Weeping Meadow" is the first film of "The Trilogy," Angelopoulos' latest and most ambitious project. The story proceeds in a straight-forward, linear fashion, unusual for Angelopoulos' treatment of time, which is often somewhat convoluted, and covers from 1919 until the end of the Greek Civil War, in 1949. The central character of a film, Eleni, is interpreted by Alexandra Aidini, in her screen appearance debut. Her acting shows unusual maturity for an unseasoned actress. Alexis' role is entrusted also to a first-time actor, Nikos Poursanidis, whose performance is convincing. Giorgos Armenis, as Nikos, is most touching in his portraying of a stoic character, full of humanity and compassion. Atypical for Angelopoulos, there are some expository dialogues in the earliest scenes, but they appear a little gauche. However, in keeping with his unique style, dialogues are sparse, without any monologues or exchanges during which his characters exteriorize their inner conflicts, doubts, or feelings. The action, as in the classic Greek theater, takes place offstage and is described not by the chorus, but by some of the different characters functioning, in turn, as the chorus.Angelopoulos' productions are always filmed on location in remote areas, using the available decor, with minimal construction. But this film required the massive constructions of a whole city neighborhood of some two hundred, 1920-style stone houses, in the Thessaloniki's harbor section, which will eventually be burnt down, and of a whole village at the edge of Lake Kerkini, some distance north of the city, which will be submerged for the purpose of the plot when the lake rises up naturally about two meters.Andreas Sinanos, Giorgos Arvanitis' assistant from 1975 until 1983, was the cinematographer. The whole film is shot under covered skies, threatening or rainy weather, and misty Greek landscapes in dark colors of grays, blues, and greens. Red appears briefly on three occasions. The colors, the characters and their costumes, the usual decors of the familial tales are all represented in tableaux and plans-sequences of an Angelopoulos who has totally reverted to the aesthetics of his first films. Angelopoulos' films contain many image references and lines of dialogues from his previous films, and this film is no exception, which makes it a delight for Angelopoulos' aficionados.The story is based on a short story by Italian screenwriter, old friend and close collaborator, Tonino Guerra, with the participation of Petros Markaris, and Giorgio Silvagni. The music is by Angelopoulos' long time collaborator, Eleni Karaindrou. Her music is not a background accompaniment, but a dramatic element, a living component of the story, an actor adding some words that had not been spoken.In "The Trilogy," Angelopoulos plans to recall his country's history, from the early years of the last century to the present, as seen through the eyes of a woman, Eleni, as she lives her life. Her story has, as principal theme, the exile of the Greek people, and the displacement of the people in general, at the whim of History. Angelopoulos tackles his themes as he would in a Greek tragedy, and as in all Greek tragedies, a single primordial mistake leads to an unstoppable chain of events, one that crushes inexorably the main character.In the present film, History is relegated to the background over which Eleni's story is told. Eleni, whose very name evokes Greece, becomes a metaphor for the Greek nation and its people. She is the Greek mythological mother who laments the sacrifices of her fathers, brothers, and sons. But she is also the modern heroine, as women everywhere throughout the ages, who bend and stagger under the weight of adversity. Furthermore, Angelopoulos' treatment of History in "The Weeping Meadow" is certainly different from that in "The Travelling Players." In the latter film, Angelopoulos' views contradict the "official" Greek history and constitute a fundamental revision of history in which the Left, in general, and the Communist Party of Greece in particular, are given their proper places, and are not depicted as the moral threat to Greek democracy. In "The Weeping Meadow," History is simply there, absolute, and not open to interpretations.Since we became familiar with the cinema of Angelopoulos, we know his fascination with the Greek myths, that they are eternal, and that History repeats itself. In this particular film, there are references to the Theban cycle of the Lavdakides family -- "Oedipus," "The Seven against Thebes," and "Antigone." There is also a reference to Homer's Penelope in the departure scene to America, where Alexis unwinds Eleni's unfinished knitted sweater. Or is it Ariadne's thread, which allowed Theseus's exit from the labyrinth? But in the present film, the thread broke and Alexis-Theseus never came back. All these allusions to Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Homer are only here because they make the poet Angelopoulos dream.Angelopoulos' work is an uncompromising devotion to cinema as poetry. His films are elegant, powerful, and eloquent. They are also long and demanding on the part of the spectator, but always well worth the effort. Angelopoulos' films have something of melancholic, but they are not pessimistic. The melancholy that one feels is the dignity of the heart confronted with the defeat of a vision.