Greek

Iphigenia (MGM World Films)

Based on the classic Greek tragedy of Euripides. A talented cast provides an insightful interpretation of the ancient drama in which Agamemnon is forced to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia after accidentally slaying a sacred deer. Music score by Mikis Theodorakis.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN Rating: NR UPC: 027616082640 Manufacturer No: M108264

A timeless classic of Greek tragedy is brought vividly to life in the Oscar-nominated Iphigenia, an engrossing and lavish adaptation of Euripides' play Iphigenia in Aulis. Director Michael Cacoyannis (Zorba the Greek) had previously adapted Euripides with his acclaimed 1962 version of Electra and 1972's The Trojan Women, but this 1977 production is widely regarded as the director's finest adaptation. In some respects the film is almost too ambitious; although generally well-received by critics and highly praised by literary scholars, its epic scale and larger-than-life performances threaten to diminish the story's emotional impact. For the most part, however, Cacoyannis succeeds in building palpable tension in retelling the gut-wrenching story of commander Agamemnon (played with theatrical grandiosity by Costa Kazakos), who is preparing to launch his legendary fleet of 1,000 army ships to retrieve the beautiful Helen of Troy. But the wind refuses to blow in the sails of the fleet, and Agamemnon is fatefully convinced that military victory can only be achieved if he sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia (Tatiana Papamoskou) to the gods. Faced with her husband's deception and betrayal, Clytemnestra (Irene Pappas) responds with vengeful wrath, and Iphigenia reaches a fever pitch of clashing agendas and devastating turmoil. Cacoyannis remains faithful to Euripides while making some smart decisions of adaptation; there's no need here for the theatrical tradition of a Greek chorus, and the play's tragic impact is greatly enhanced by epic-scale visuals and the fierce performance of Pappas in one of the best roles of her career. And while Iphigenia may lack the opulence of later epics like Troy and Kingdom of Heaven, it still ranks among the most impressive efforts to bring Greek tragedy to the screen. --Jeff Shannon

Electra

From "one of the world's most talented filmmakers" (Los Angeles Times) comes this riveting, OscarÂ(r)-nominated* retelling of Euripides' searing classic. Written, produced and directedby Michael Cacoyannis (Stella, Zorba the Greek), and starring legendary Greek beauty Irene Papas (The Trojan Women), Electra is "majestic and awesome" (The New York Times)"a truly powerful and visually impressive picture" (Boxoffice). Desolationand despair reign supreme in the kingdom of Mycenae: The great Agamemnon has been brutally murdered; his son, Orestes, has fled to an unknown land; and his daughter Electra has been imprisoned withinthe very walls of the castle she once loved so well. All hope seems lost until the sacred oracle speaks and replaces Electra's broken spirit with an unquenchable desire for justiceand bloody vengeance! *1962: Foreign Language Film

Never on Sunday

Nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actress Director and Original screenplay and featuring the Oscar winning song "Never on Sunday" this "racy arty comedy" (The Hollywood Reporter) is as intoxicating as fine Greek wine... and a "rambunctious" (Time) delight!Glasses are smashing fingers are snapping and everyone's dancing to the sultry music of the bouzoukies! It's just another glorious moment in the carefree world of Illia (Melina Mercouri) Greece's most radiant lady of the night. Sensuous Illia adores her life and every man in her seaport paradise adores her. But when Homer (Jules Dassin) a stuffy American intellectual sails into town and tries to reform her Illia shows him that she's one free spirit who's happy with her wild life and not about to be tamed.System Requirements:Starring: Melina Mercouri Directed By: Jules Dassin Running Time: 93 Min. Color Copyright 2003 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 027616887474 Manufacturer No: 1004706

Thirty-two years before My Big Fat Greek Wedding brought Greek-American culture to a mainstream audience, Never on Sunday took mainstream culture to Greece, with similarly popular results. Expatriate director Jules Dassin wrote, directed, and costars in this vibrant and (in retrospect) rather simple-minded celebration of good living, as embodied by the vivacious Melina Mercouri in the Cannes award-winning role of her career. She's Ilya, a fiercely independent prostitute who hand-picks her clientele, and Dassin plays Homer, an American intellectual enamored of all things Greek, and determined to steer Ilya onto the straight and moral path. He's out of his depth, of course; it's not long before his efforts are exposed as naively self-serving, and half the fun of Never on Sunday comes from watching Mercouri amiably deflect any attempt to dampen her indomitable spirit. Innocently good-natured by latter-day standards, Dassin's delightful film still retains its popular charm, and its familiar bouzouki theme is an irresistible invitation to join in the fun. --Jeff Shannon

Young Aphrodites

Filmed among the ruins of ancient Greece and using authentic shepherds and peasants this exotic and sensual film presents the universal story of the physical longing and sexual attraction of two adolescents. This magnificently photographed film is a poetic ode to the beginning of adulthood and the loss of innocence. (Dubbed)Runtime: 87 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN UPC: 891514001184 Manufacturer No: EPODV1184

Antigone

Amarcord (Criterion Collection)

From moment to moment and shot by shot, Amarcord delivers more sheer pleasure than any other Federico Fellini movie. That's not to say it's his greatest film, or that anything in it rivals the emotional, lyrical, or metaphysical wallop of the finest passages in Nights of Cabiria, 8 1/2, La Strada, or even La Dolce Vita, the big early-'60s crossover hit that made the director king of the international film world. But Amarcord was the last clear triumph of Fellini's career, his prodigious gifts for phantasmagoria, amazing fluidity, and gregarious choreography all feeding an emotional core that caught at audiences' heartstrings and carried them away.

The title is supposed to mean "I remember," and the film is ostensibly a memory-dream-diary of life in the director's seaside hometown of Rimini during one year in the 1930s. But Fellini was an irrepressible showman who loved pulling the audience's collective chain, and Amarcord is no more straightforward as a recollection of his real adolescence than "amarcord" is a real word--Fellini made it up as a bit of pretend vernacular. So the strolling town historian who pops up occasionally to supply antiquarian footnotes directly to the camera more often than not gets pelted with snowballs from offscreen. Just as Nino Rota's (wonderful) music score recycles melodies from his scores for earlier Fellini masterworks, Fellini's movie is full of lyric ecstasies--spontaneous parades, comic ceremonies, eye-popping surrealist moments--that exist principally because that is what a Fellini movie is supposed to be like. There's no dominant story line, no individual character or player to be identified as the center of the film's swirling movement. Yet we do get to "know," and begin to cherish, literally dozens of goofy, eccentric, funny/sad creatures who have their distinct places in the continuum of Fellini's made-up town and reimagined Italy of a bygone era.

The era was, of course, that of Facsism. Fellini's take on Fascism here is anything but portentous; the giddy nationalism given voice occasionally by delirious crowds of townsfolk is no more sinister than the same crowd might have been in cheering on the local football team. In the movie's most famous set-piece, dozens of locals put out to sea in small boats to witness the passage of a fabulous ocean liner, the Rex, "the greatest construction of the regime." Waiting, they sleep--till suddenly the luminous (and entirely unreal) vision is towering above them, threatening to swamp them all. The moment is both ecstatic and terrifying. It's not the only one.

One last memory: In 1975 Amarcord received the Oscar for best foreign-language film of 1974. Since the film went into general U.S. release in '75, it was eligible for the Motion Picture Academy to turn around and nominate Fellini again, in '76, for best director and best original screenplay of 1975. He didn't win any further awards, but his repeat appearance in that year's Oscar derby occasioned an exquisite cultural moment: the young Steven Spielberg, realizing that he had not been cited for his direction of Jaws, gasping, "They gave my nomination to Fellini?!" --Richard T. Jameson

Eternity and a Day

Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize, Theo Angelopoulos's deeply moving odyssey centers on Alexander (portrayed by Bruno Ganz of WINGS OF DESIRE), a celebrated Greek writer who, while terminally ill, focuses on one special last idyllic day. A poetic, haunting, and abundantly beautiful film, ETERNITY AND A DAY weaves an emotionally charged tale of love and life, where the past and the present come together to create a forceful yet eloquent message of hope for the future. Embarking on a dreamy and transcending voyage to relive an idealized time with his long lost wife at their beloved seaside retreat, his day is interrupted as he happens upon a lost and troubled eight year old boy whose future plight brings new meaning to Alexander's own journey into the past. Crossing paths at a special moment in time, the two strangers, man and boy, share a poignant life experience as one journey ends and a new one begins.

Emanuelle's Daughter: Queen of Sados

EMANUELLE'S DAUGHTER - QUEEN OF SADOS (DVD MOVIE)

The Weeping Meadow

Greek director Theo Angelopoulous' portrayal of war-ravaged Greece is framed by the tragic love story that unfolds in The Weeping Meadow. This first saga in his "Trilogy," spanning 1919-1949, opens with a visually stunning scene of refugees from Odessa crossing estuaries that show their haggard reflections in water, as if to double apparent hardship. While establishing Odessa's history in relation to the rise of Mussolini's Facist takeover, The Weeping Meadow unravels a complicated love triangle between Eleni (Alexandra Aidini), an Odessa girl, her lover, an unnamed young man (Nikos Poursadinis), and his lonely father, Spyros (Vassilis Kolovos), who also happens to be Eleni's fiancé. The plot often focuses on the young man's talent for accordion playing, and his musical group, headed by the feisty, impassioned fiddler, Nikos (Giorgos Armenis). But when Eleni's lover abandons her for America, she's captured by soldiers, imprisoned, and separated from her children. As in Cinema Paradiso, the human drama unfolding mimics its political settings, so that love quarrels heighten the sense of repression, and vice versa. When civil war breaks out, Eleni's life seems in shambles as well. Emotionally wrought, The Weeping Meadow is depressing but still lovely for its depth of character and portrayal of Greek culture. As with any love story, the film reminds the viewer how human relationships are fragile yet enduring. --Trinie Dalton

Signs of Life

Werner Herzog's first feature-length film, Signs of Life is the work of a confident 24-year old filmmaker who knew exactly what he was doing. Many of the stylistic and thematic concerns that would inform Herzog's later films are fully evident here, from his mixture of documentary-like realism and strange, dream-like passages to the bold use of location as character. Set on a remote Greek island during World War II, the slowly paced story unfolds as an injured, recuperating soldier named Stroszek (Peter Brogle) and his new wife Nora (Athina Zacharopoulou) grow accustomed to their slow and quiet life of seclusion. Herzog captures a palpable sense of boredom, but his film is anything but tedious for those who are seduced by its peculiar rhythms and exotic locale. As Stroszek (a name later used as the title of one of Herzog's best-known films) loses his grip on reality and threatens to detonate the munitions dump he's been assigned to care for, Signs of Life attains an elusive, mystical quality that makes it linger in the memory long after you've seen it. New Yorker Video's DVD release is also blessed by a fascinating audio commentary by Herzog devotee Norman Hill and the director himself, whose vivid memories of making Signs of Life add further insight into the curious qualities of this odd yet unforgettable film. --Jeff Shannon

"Stroszek is an injured soldier sent to recuperate at a remote Greek island. There, he and his new Greek wife, Nora, serve as caretakers to an abandoned ammunition dump. The newlyweds adjust to their new life on this enchanted desert isle and attend to their simple duties, but soon, the heat, the exotic locale, and the suspicious, eccentric natives push Stroszek towards insanity. He finally snaps, tries to kill his wife, then plans to ignite the ammunition dump. Ultimately, soldiers swarm the area, trying to capture the psychotic Stroszek before he blows up the whole island.

Signs of Life is the debut feature from Werner Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Fitzcarraldo; Nosferatu), the director that both Milos Forman and François Truffaut have called "the greatest filmmaker alive today."