Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
In "Ulysses' Gaze" ("To Vlemma Tou Odyssea," 1995), a Greek-American filmmaker, not named in the film, and only referred to as "A" in the script, is on a quest to find three lost reels of undeveloped film, the first ever produced in Greece, from around 1905. These films are in fact the first cinematographic record…
About Ulysses' Gaze
In "Ulysses' Gaze" ("To Vlemma Tou Odyssea," 1995), a Greek-American filmmaker, not named in the film, and only referred to as "A" in the script, is on a quest to find three lost reels of undeveloped film, the first ever produced in Greece, from around 1905. These films are in fact the first cinematographic record, the first "gaze" in the philosophical sense, into the soul of the region. As the title implies, the story will take the form of an odyssey that begins in Greece and continues through Albania (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, known to the Greeks as the Republic of Skopje), Bulgaria, Rumania, Serbia, and finally Bosnia. The film opens with an old black and white silent film that shows some village women weaving. In a voice-over, Harvey Keitel comments, "Weavers in Avdella, a Greek Village, 1905, the first film made by the brothers Miltiades and Yannakis Manakis, [who filmed] all the ambiguities, the contrasts, the conflicts in this area of the world." For those of you who would watch "Ulysses' Gaze" only to find out if these three films ever existed, you now know the answer, and you don't have to watch to the end. But if you follow the advice of the Greek poet…
