Trace of Stones

Spur der Steine; drama, Germany, 1966; D: Frank Beyer, S: Eberhard Esche, Manfred Krug, Krystyna Stypułkowska, Johannes Wieke, Walter Richter-Reinick

East Germany. Balla is a brute foreman of seven construction workers who cause a lot of problems privately, and wear cowboy hats, but are tolerated because they get the job done. A new manager, the idealistic Horrath, member of the Socialist Party of East Germany, arrives to the construction site, yet his authority is at first ignored by Balla. Horrath proposes work in three shifts. Another new employee is engineer Kati, but both Balla and Horrath fall in love with her. She decides to meet Horrath in an apartment, introducing him to the nosy landlord as "Kruger from Leipzig". After Kati becomes pregnant, the Communist Party members interrogate her about the unknown identity of father, fearing this will damage the party's reputation, but Kati refuses to reveal it is Horrath, since he is married. When the Party finds out, anyway, Horrath is demoted to an ordinary worker, but Balla surprisingly goes to defend him. A committee investigation drops the charges against Horrath, but Kati decides to leave the city, anyway, to start a new life.

Frank Beyer's drama "Trace of Stone" was surprisingly subversive and critical of the Communist Party, and was thus banned and landed in "bunker" in East Germany until the fall of Communism. Upon its "re-discovery", many film critics rightfully praised it, though it has some omissions—the first half is brilliant and wonderfully creative, but the second half is way too routine and suffers from too excessive dialogues, until it exhausts the viewers' enthusiasm through the overlong running time of 139 minutes. The first half has a few great moments: in one scene, a Communist official is holding a long speech in the hall, concluding with: "I wish you, ladies and gentlemen, a welcome to the festivities for the 10th birthday of our Republic!", causing the cynical Balla to turn around and look at his collague, when they have this exchange: "The Republic will think of this bright evening even when she will be 20!" - "It won't get to be this old." A Party member from the stage replies: "You can answer through your deeds on the construction site, colleague Balla!" The new characters who arrive to work at the construction site are neatly introduced—Kati shows up to work as an engineer, but an official is reluctant to hire her, explaining: "If at least you were ugly! ... The workers will look under your skirt all the time!" - "Can't a woman wear pants?", which displays her integrity and resourcefulness. 

Manager Horrath is the embodiment of the young, naive newcomer who is faced with a dark reality check—during the rain, he meets Balla and stretches out his hand for a handshake. Balla, wearing a giant cowboy hat, just looks down, and water from his hat falls down on Horrath's hand. Since Balla and his colleagues often wear these black cowboy hats and act defiantly, they may serve as a symbol for American-style solutions which can get wild and problematic, but get the job done, challenging the Communist Party control. Horrath on the other hand is the symbol for numerous ideological people who will get disappointed in Communist management and become disillusioned. Remarkably, both male characters undergo an opposite character arc: Balla from a chaotic brute to a kind, respectful man who in the end stands up to protect Horrath in front of the investigation committee, whereas Horrath starts as a man full enthusiasm, only to sink into despair and cynicism in the end. The second half is a lot weaker, unfortunately. Too much time is spent on the Party committee interrogating Kati, whereas the other dialogues explaining the love triangle are standard and boring. This in the end wears the story down and reduces its enjoyment value. Everything was clear already after 10 minutes, there was no need to prolong this for a whole hour. Either the movie needed to be shorter or its inspiration needed to have been more abundant in the last hour. Nonetheless, "Trace of Stones" is a clever and bitter depiction of interwoven relations between private and business life, and how they can disrupt each other, and features some fine performances. 

Grade:++

20 Days in Mariupol

20 dniv u Mariupoli; documentary, Ukraine, 2023; D: Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Liudmyla Amelkina, Roman Golovanov

On 24 February 2022, Russian fascist Vladimir Putin decides to become a Hague-indicted war criminal. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine starts, massacring in order to create a Greater Russia, journalist Msytslav Chernov teams up with Frontline PBS and Associated Press to document the siege of Mariupol. Several people flee the coastal city, while those who stay witness shelling, bombing, lack of electricity, water and food, forcing some to break into stores and steal any food left. The hospital is overwhelmed with wounded people from the shelling. On 9 March, Russian forces bomb the maternity hospital: a pregnant woman's pelvis is crushed, and she dies. As Russian tanks invade the city, Chernov is ordered by his boss to leave the city. Around 2,000 cars with civilians evacuate in a Red Cross convoy, arriving to safety, outside the occupied territory.

There are some movie for which you know that its scenes will haunt you for the rest of your life. Mstyslav Chernov's documentary "20 Days in Mariupol"—for better of for worse—may have at least six of them, unforgettable in its painfulness. It is a direct, depressing, shocking and unflinching recording of history, of a community that was destroyed in the war. Chernov is an example of the right man being on the right place, since the magnitude of events happening in Mariupol were of such relevance that practically anything he filmed made for a great documentary: he asks a little girl hiding in the basement during the bombing how she feels, and she responds with crying: "I don't want to die". A medic in an ambulance giving CPR to a 4-year old wounded child, trying to revive the kid. Firefighters breaking the wall-fence to enter a backyard in order to extinguish a fire on the rooftop of a hit house. A scared hamster running on the street, lost, while its owner tries to catch it. A man showing a turtle in a plastic storage box in water, saying "It also just wants to live", not knowing how to feed it when people themselves experience a shortage of food. A scared older woman shouting outside that she doesn't know where to go. A doctor unwrapping a blanket to show the corpse of a baby in the basement of the hospital. Similarly like "Schindler's List" and "Shoah", "20 Days in Mariupol" also shows how pure evil can destroy the lives of people, how a totalitarian dictatorship negates any human right or dignity, and how people are trapped in a cycle of violence caused by irredentism and annexationism, in this case Greater Russia. It is an outstanding chronicle, powerful and emotional, a memory to all those who want to forget "inconvenient" history, and a mental diagnosis of Goreshist Russia, a miscarriaged society.

Grade:+++

No Time to Die

No Time to Die; action thriller, UK / USA, 2021; D: Cary Joji Fukunaga, S: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz 

Madeleine Swann, a little girl, sees how her family is shot by Safin, as revenge because her father killed his family, under orders of Blofeld. However, Safin spares Madeleine. Twenty years later, James Bond is in a relationship with Madeleine, now a psychiatrist, but after Spectre tries to assassinate him, he ends all contact with her, falsely assuming she betrayed him. In the present, Spectre steals a British secret weapon, a DNA-targeted gas with nanobots that can be programmed to kill a specific person based on his or her DNA. Bond joins the CIA, and then goes back to the service of MI6. He finds out Madeleine had a daughter with him. They go to an island in the Pacific where Spectre has a secret lab aiming to kill millions using the DNA-weapon. Bond keeps the roof of the lab open when the British rockets strike it, destroying it, but killing Bond with them.

The 25th James Bond, a one which completed Daniel Craig's six-movie entry as the famous british spy, "No Time to Die" is a good and highly unusual film, a one that shows how far the franchize strayed away from the first film entry, "Dr. No", almost 60 years ago. This isn't the typical James Bond anymore, but rather a post-modern science-fiction spy tragedy. The authors went into the territory many thought James Bond movies will never go—even more so than "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"—and thus it deserves credit and respect for its bravery: Bond's relationship and his fragile humanity here take the center stage, changing the formula considerably and adding new layers to the story. However, the ending isn't as emotional as one would have expected, and one cannot quite figure out why. Maybe because there is something calculative and mechanical to the writing, or because the humanization of Bond didn't go far enough. The action sequences are very good, though much more scarce and subdued this time around, whereas the emotional relationships and dialogues of Bond and his love Madeleine (very good Lea Seydoux) are not strong enough to be a worthy compensation. The nanobot DNA-targeted weapon is closer to some futuristic dystopia than a realistic element, yet it creates sufficient suspense. While the depressing and thrill elements cause a slight tonal imbalance, "No Time to Die" is one of the most interesting—and experimental—Bond movies, a one that subverts the expectations, but in a good and meaningful way. It also serves as a quality ending of the entire franchize.

Grade:++

Easy A

Sve pet; documentary, Croatia, 2003; D: Dana Budisavljević, S: Lidija Šunjerga

When she was 19, Lidija from Kaštela accepted a shady job of a waitress in Amsterdam, but once there, she was among the 15 girls who discovered they were held captive by the mafia to work as prostitutes in a Red Light district. Lidija taught herself how to speak Dutch, cotacted a police officer and was freed. However, she stayed in Amsterdam for over a decade, working in porn movies. After she could not renew her visa, she came back to Croatia to announce she works as a porn actress, yet only received offers for third-class movies. Lidija visited her mother and sister Jasminka, and had several relationships with men, including a former drug addict living in a farm. Lidija finally gets pregnant at 37, but her lover refuses to accept the legitimacy of the child. 

Sometimes it suffices just to find a person who experiences an incredible life story to make an interesting documentary. One such case is Dana Budisavljevic's "Easy A" that just follows Lidija Sunjerga, a woman whose life is so insane that it is fascinating: more plot twists and surprises happen to her than in 10 soap operas. For one, even though she was the victim of human trafficking and forced prostitution in Amsterdam, after being released she decided to continue with such a branch and made several porn movies, before returning to Croatia. For other, she had a lot of problems trying to blend back in the conservative Dalmatian mentality. However, she is a very intelligent person and always acts as if she is in a life adventure, which makes all these stories perplexing and even a bit comical. Archive footage is used from her AV movies up to her appearance in the Željko Malnar TV show, where she bravely publicly announced she is a porn star, hoping to attract directors to make movies, only to be disappointed that Croatia doesn't have any professional AV industry. Other details are amusing as well (the address of her family's house is "Path of Graveyard"; she argues her deceased dad beat her and that she escaped because of that, while her sister claims he only beat her because she was disrespectful and "didn't listen"; her mother adds how "nicotine saved her sanity"; Lidija saying she is only "occasionally infatuated" with a guy...), and a lot of random stuff happens out of nowhere, just like in real life, as even Budisavljevic joked how she was struggling as to when to end the movie, because insane events just kept happening to Lidija, even after the filming was completed. It's as if Lidija is a magnet for compelling events. "Easy A" is more of a silent observer of how sometimes life directs its own movie.

Grade:+++

Vukovar: A Story

Vukovar, jedna priča; war drama, Serbia, 1994; D: Boro Drašković, S: Mirjana Joković, Boris Isaković, Svetlana Bojković, Predrag Ejdus, Mihailo Janketić

Vukovar, 1 9 8 9. Croat girl Ana and Serb lad Tomo observe the fall of the Berlin Wall on TV. Some time later, they get married, but already ominously observe two protests on the streets: one for Yugoslavia, the other for Croatian independence. As the rise of Serb and Croat nationalism causes friction, Tomo is drafted and sent to the Yugoslav Army. In 1 9 9 1, the Croatian War of Independence and the Battle of Vukovar erupt. A pregnant Ana goes to live with her Croat parents, but their house gets destroyed in the war. Ana and Tomo briefly reunite, but then Ana hides with other people in the basement. She gives birth in an abandoned house. Two buses drive off two nations in two seperate directions: Ana and other Croats drive off towards Zagreb, while Tomo and other Serbs drive off towards Belgrade.

One of the rare movies about the Battle of Vukovar, the bloodiest episode from the Croatian War, Boro Draskovic's "Vukovar: A Story" is today remembered for its incredible decision to recreate the battle on location, just two years later. The viewers are not watching a movie set—they are watching the "real thing", the realism of post-war destruction and consequences of urbicide. Despite its controversies, the movie is overall surprisingly neutral and balanced—it doesn't depict the event through neither the perspective of Croatian politics nor Serb politics, but instead through the gaze of ordinary civilians whose idyll is ruined by chaos when they find themselves in the middle of god's war. The story about a Romeo & Juliet-style couple, Croat Ana and Serb Tomo, is banal, melodramatic and sometimes even pretentious (the line "The truth in one time era can become a delusion in the other"), yet it has enough honest anti-war observations and balance to deserve a recommendation. The battle starts some 45 minutes into the film, and it is depicted in an earnest manner, with several shocking, dark and depressing moments: a pregnant Ana and a woman are raped inside their house when burglars storm inside. Two Serb soldiers flip-flop on a seesaw overseeing the ruined city, shooting with machine guns in the sky, chanting: "We will build a better and older city!" Ana observing a tank crashing through the fence into her garden, shooting at the house. The leitmotiv of a white peacock that is a symbol of lost peace, noticeable when Ana observes a house burning, and the peacock flies away from it. Ana exiting the basement, only to open the door and spot fire in the city outside. There are several flaws, especially in the overabundance of archive footage of everything, yet the movie's tragic theme about how war destroys a community rings true, the actors deliver fine performances, whereas the final 3-minute aerial shot of the ruins of Vukovar is impressive and says everything.

Grade:++

Carole & Tuesday

Carole & Tuesday; animated science-fiction music drama series, Japan, 2019; D: Shinichiro Watanabe, S: Miyuri Shimabukuro, Kana Ichinose, Akio Otsuka, Miyu Irino, Sumire Uesaka, Hiroshi Kamiya

Mars in the future. Blond teenage girl Tuesday flees from the home of her mother, Valerie, a political candidate who wants to win elections running on a xenophobic platform with a promise of deporting refugees back to Earth. Tuesday meets musician teenage girl Carole, an orphan, they become friends and decide to form a music band. They perform and their video goes viral on the Internet, and thus manager Gus decides to lead them. Carole & Tuesday attend a music pop idol talent show, where they win together with Angela. They sign a contract and release their own single. In order to protest against the treatment of musicians who are arrested for singing controversial politicial songs, Carole & Tuesday rally all the best Martian musicians together and let them perform in the Immigration Memorial Hall on Christmas, which becomes a sensation on Mars. Valerie quits her political race.

"Carole & Tuesday" is an anime series whose first third is so outstanding that you are taken aback at how underwhelming it is for the next two thirds of its story. You wish its last 17 episodes were as great as its first seven episodes. Overall, it is a sweet, charming and often funny depiction of young musicians trying to make it, to achieve their dream, practically having to beg producers and famous musicians to just give them a chance to listen to them sing, whereas the animation is highly detailed and crafted with finesse, yet the director Shinichiro Watanabe once again shows that he never managed to repeat his greatest achievement, "Cowboy Bebop", which here shares only "Carole & Tuesday's" setting—a terraformed Mars—but does not share its quality. The opening seven episodes are wonderful, showing Watanabe in a highly inspired edition, adding the two title heroines an emotional dimension which is easy to understand—the first episode shows Carole playing music on a synthesizer on the bridge, while the pedestrians ignore her, as she narrates: "I know my music won't reach anyone here. I know no one is interested in me. But I still want to sing, let these feelings out." 

However, the anime also has a lot of comical moments: a stand-out is manager Gus, who transforms from an alcoholic bum in a bar to a fully sober, focused man in an instant as soon as he hears Carole & Tuesday's music video on a mobile phone, as if he found his meaning again. For instance, episode #2 shows Carole taking a job of a person who mourns at the funeral of a deceased rich stranger, but as she spots a butterfly on the head of a bald priest, instead of crying, she bursts into laughter, thus losing her contract, whereas Carole & Tuesday's amateur music video in episode #4 is hilariously bad. The audition of the contestants for the Martian pop idol talent show is so absurd it almost reaches the level of a parody—one candidate is a ventriloquist whose dummy sings, while the other is a grandmother who starts with an openning that the following song is dedicated to her deceased mother, who sang this to her when she was a child, only to then start a demented hip-hop chanting while she slides across the studio using her cane, shocking the judges. However, one gets the impression the story should have ended with the conclusion of this talent show at around episode #12, since the plot is lost after it. The story simply doesn't know what to do with these characters in the second half, exhausting itself with one-episode subplots which don't go anywhere (transgender musician Desmond invites them to sing one last time before he dies; retired producer Tobe; Flora, Gus' former client...) and feel pointless. There is one good joke in episode #23 (Pyotr and GCK, who lost the talent show contest, form a new band, "Losers"), but the overindulgance with long singing throughout several episodes reduces the anime's grip on the narrative, making it too routine, vague and mechanical in the second half.

Grade:++

The Creator

The Creator; science-fiction action, USA, 2023; D: Gareth Edwards, S: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Allison Janey, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe

In the future, a nuclear warhead is fired at Los Angeles, and the US government blames the AI for it, thereby banning all Ai in technology. The Western world declares total war against AI in New Asia, where humans still live peacefully with AI in the form of robots and androids. US sergeant Joshua Taylor is an undercover agent who got intimate with Maya, whose father is Nirmata, the architect who helps AI evolve. Maya was hit in a strike, but Joshua returns to Asia to try to find her and Nirmata. He only stumbles upon a cyborg child, Alphie. As they are hunted down, Joshua finds out Maya was Nirmata, and that she encoded the DNA of their fetus in Alphie. Also, allegedly the nuclear attack was a human coding error. The US Army kidnaps Alphie, but Joshua helps her escape and go to the US secret weapon NOMAD in space. Alphie has the ability to shut down and control all technology, and thus destroys NOMAD, but Joshue dies inside it.

"The Creator" is a dark, depressive and unpleasant hypothetical contemplation of the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI), and through it of some more universal themes of a fear between one species surpassing another one—can there be a peaceful co-existence or is the existential conflict over domination inevitable? The director Gareth Edwards crafts a fluent, dynamic and suspensful sci-fi film, with a lot of sense for technical achievements, especially the visual effects of robots, androids and the space war station NOMAD which scans and bombards targets on Earth, whereas its two main actors, John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles, are convincing in playing Joshua and Alphie who bond emotionally, giving it tragic weight. It is also a chilling commentary on the mentality of total war, where the enemy is fully dehumanized to such an extent that this reaches the level of xenophobia (a robot screams in panic and emotional appeal, but Joshua just cuts off its cable, despite a disturbed woman watching, claiming it's "just programming" and that its consciousness isn't real). However, the film focuses too much on action sequences at times at the expense of the more philosophical elements, whereas its last third falters due to several plots holes and inconsistencies. For instance, it is established that Alphie has the ability to simply shut off all technology—so why didn't she start using this much earlier, when the army arrived to kidnap her and fly away in helicopters? Why would precisely Joshue be summoned to execute her in the laboratory, and not someone else? These huge plot holes and a forced sentimental ending weaken the movie, which for some reason by that point entered the chatbot territory, since some of its elements felt mechanical and stiff.

Grade:++

Four Rooms

Four Rooms; black comedy, USA, 1995; D: Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, S: Tim Roth, Ione Skye, Valeria Golino, Madonna, David Proval, Jennifer Beals, Lana McKissack, Danny Verduzco, Antonio Banderas, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Calderon, Bruce Willis

Four stories involving bellboy Ted encountering bizarre guests at his hotel: a group of women-witches try to re-awaken their goddess, Diana, in a bathtub soup, but one of them forgot an ingredient, sperm, so she decides to seduce Ted... While entering room 404, Ted is held at gunpoint by a seemingly jealous husband who has his wife tied up to a chair, accusing Ted to sleeping with her... A Hispanic man gives Ted 500$ to babysit his two kids, Sarah and Juancho, in the hotel room while he is off having a romantic night with his wife outside. But the kids misbehave... A Hollywood filmmaker, Chester, offers Ted 1,000$ to participate in a bet: if Norman can light his lighter ten times in a row, he wins Chester's car, but if he fails, Ted must hack up Norman's pinky finger. Norman fails to ignite the lighter even on the first try, Ted hacks up his finger, collects the money and leaves the room.

A disparate collection of episodes directed by four directors, "Four Rooms" is a hit-or-miss affair, though the film critics cannot agree upon which episodes are the better ones. Undoubtedly, the first story involving some obscure coven of witches trying to revive their goddess in the hotel bathtub is indeed the weakest link, failing to be either inspired or clever, and is simply not funny. The sole concept is misguided, the dialogues are stale, and the execution is routine. The fourth episode, directed by and starring Quentin Tarantino, is also among the camp of the subpar episodes, defying the old saying "save the best for last". Despite a neat openning 7-minute scene filmmed in one take, it is the weakest film Quentin Tarantino ever directed: it can be summed up as "much talk about nothing", since his enthusiasm for talking isn't working if it isn't matched by the sentences his characters are saying, which are here underwhelming. Likewise, the bet involving hacking off someone's little finger if he fails to light a lighter ten times in a row is ill-conceived, since it is more appropriate for some drugged teenagers playing truth or dare than serious grown ups who would volontarily engage in such a folly. However, episodes #2 and #3 work, and this is where "Four Room" finally lifts-off. The hostage-taking role play by husband and wife in the second story is directed by Alexandre Rockwell with a sense for visual style (Ted falling down in slow-motion; camera circling around him while he is on the floor; Ted stuck half-way in the window) and snappy dialogues ("Whether you like it or not, you are in the middle of a situation here you cannot just wish your way out of"; "Do you have the faintest idea what it's like to arrive at school and find yourself surrounded by the maladjusted?"). The third story, directed by Robert Rodriguez, is also funny, though it was a mistake to cast two little kids in such an adult setting, having the kid smoke and the girl see a dead prostitute hidden in the mattress, whereas it is a pity that the excellent Tim Roth is barely in this story, since he is just a supporting character this time around. Nonetheless, its finale is the comic highlight of this anthology film.

Grade:++

Ulysses' Gaze

To Vlemma tou Odyssea; art-film, Greece / France / Italy / UK / Germany / Serbia / Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995; D: Theo Angelopoulos, S: Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern, Erland Josephson, Thanssis Veggos, Yorgos Michalakopoulos

A Greek-American director, A, arrives to Greece to find the three undeveloped film reels of the Manaki brothers, the pioneers of cinema of the Balkans at the start of the 20th century. He hires a taxi driver to go to Albania, but snow stops the journey. He then goes to Skopje where the film reels are alleged to be, but the film archive informs him they were sent to Bulgaria. He has an affair with a woman in the train. He boards a ship sailing across the Danube, and arrives in Belgrade. His friend informs him that the film reels were sent to Ivo in Sarajevo for development, but that he lost any contact with him during the Serb siege. A daringly travels all the way to war-torn Sarajevo and meets Ivo, finally finding the film reels. A falls in love with Ivo's daughter, but she, Ivo, and two kids are shot by Serb paramilitary during the fog and thrown into the Miljecka river. A mourns after their death. He plays the screening of the film reels, but it is just a blank screen.

Director Theo Angelopoulos is an acquired taste, and his hermetic art-film "Ulysses' Gaze" is an even more acquired taste within that, which is a reason why it was too obscure to satisfy even his hardcore fans—it is a meandering road movie without a clear storyline, instead relying more on the power of aesthetic images and the subconscious mood to communicate with the viewers and bring its point across. It's a difficult film to sit through because it is so slow, but, just like most of his films, it "sinks in" into your mind and stays there after a while. The vague plot of film director A (Harvey Keitel) searching for some undeveloped film reels across the Balkans is used more like a travelcard than a real, developed film idea, and Angelopoulos only has the one film technique, the long, demanding Antonioni-Tarkovsky-style shots filmed in one take (the entire movie has only around 60 cuts), whch becomes monotone after a while. However, he is able to use it in his vision of the allegorical history of the Balkans, starting from the Greece, a symbol of hope and civilization; through the ship transporting a 100-foot tall broken statue of Lenin, lying horizontally, along the Danube as the people wave at the ship from the shore, a symbol of the funeral of Communism; up to the siege of Sarajevo, a war at the end of the century in a place where World War I started at the beginning of the century. 

Some scenes are indeed impressive, especially those surreal ones where past and present merge in the same location. An hour into the movie, there is a monumental 10-minute long scene filmed in one take—the camera drives around a house, as it shows family members greeting each other at the dinning table, all until the camera stops and holds still in a static shot in the hallway, showing A dancing with his mother, in a triple (!) New Years' party, where at first someone says "Happy new 1 9 4 5!", but then some agents enter through the door, take away a man who says: "Happy new 1 9 4 8!", while the people continue dancing, only for all their chairs, the piano and other possessions to be taken away by Communist agents, someone says it is "1 9 5 0", and then the family members gather and look directly into the camera, all the while it zooms in onto the face of a boy. In another example, A is interrogated by a Bulgarian official who reads him the charges that the Manaki brothers had weapons and explosives which were to be used against the Bulgarian army; A is then blindfolded and sent in front of a World War I firing squad, but then off screen someone is heard saying that his sentence is changed to exile to Plovdiv, and then A takes the blindfold off, he is back in the present, he goes to a Bulgarian border crossing and announces he is heading towards said city. With a 3-hour running time, "Ulysses' Gaze" is definitely overlong, ponderous and pretentious, whereas Angelopoulos spends too much time on unecessary or trivial details. The best part is the final act, showing the siege of Sarajevo, and A wondering through ruins of the buildings. There are some surreal moments here (patients from a mental asylum exiting the building during the chaos, observing two dead people on the streets and a car burning), and a chilling one (murder in the fog, where a Serb paramilitary says: "It's God who made us, and he messed it all up."). Did "Ulysses' Gaze" need to last for three hours? No. Is it a meditative essay on history of the Balkans that deserves to be seen? Yes.

Grade:++