Eleni (film)
Movie | |
---|---|
Original title | Eleni |
Country of production | United States |
original language | English |
Publishing year | 1985 |
length | 112 minutes |
Age rating | FSK 16 |
Rod | |
Director | Peter Yates |
script |
Steve Tesich Nicholas Gage (book) |
production |
Nick Vanoff Mark Pick Nicholas Gage |
music | Bruce Smeaton |
camera | Billy Williams |
cut | Ray Lovejoy |
occupation | |
|
Eleni is a film adaptation of 1985 of the same name autobiographical book by Nicholas Gage . The book is based on a true story. During the Greek civil war , over 28,000 Greek children were forcibly taken away from their parents by the communist partisans and "brought to safety" in various communist countries.
action
Like the book, the film is a flashback narrated by the writer Gage or New York Times reporter Nick. He now lives in the United States and is returning to his native Greece after thirty years to solve the mystery of the death of his mother, who died when he was a child.
The film shows the effects of the Greek civil war in the remote Greek hometown of Gage in the 1940s and examines what happened to his mother after communist guerrillas raided the small mountain village of Lia in the north-west Greek region of Epirus and stole food supplies from the residents. In the course of his research, Nick learns that his mother Eleni was executed by the partisans for arranging the escape of her children from the village occupied by the communist partisans after the eldest daughters were forced to fight for the partisans and she was given the wanted to take away from younger children.
When Gage finally manages to track down the person primarily responsible for the torture and death of his mother in Greece, he does not manage to kill him - as intended. He tells in the film that his mother's love for her children, which he had experienced as a child and who were her last outcry, ultimately prevented him from doing so. While the film focuses more on the adult Gage and his investigation, the book focuses more on the events in the small poor village of his childhood.
criticism
Strong actors save the somewhat superficial crime story told in flashbacks based on the biography of a New York reporter.
Trivia
The Dutch music duo Tol & Tol processed the topic successfully in 1990 in the song of the same name Eleni , among other things in a joint vocal version with the Greek singer Demis Roussos .
Web links
- Eleni in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Eleni movie review