Who gets praise and who gets blame? You don't know? I think you do! History was always written by victors, this is no exception. Who's the bad guy? Which brother gets moral high ground? The one who took to mountains, kidnapped young ones to put them through a grim life behind the Iron Curtain, laid waste to his land and his home? Or the other, who after suffering all that, imprisoned those left behind (the majority of which were not part of the armed struggle and suffered along too), exiled them to desolate barren islands (there are more than we need of those in the Aegean), made them "dance" with cats in a sack (interesting how democracy, or "democracy", can be as horrendous as communism or any other totalitarian regime) and generally held them at the "border" of society until 1974. Kids being taken from their mothers' arms to be transported.where? Brother killing brother (literally!) and generally bringing down whatever was once dear. We, Greeks, have our experience which, sadly, is more "fresh" - lots of people that lived through it are still around to talk about it. Americans surely have their experience, they have gone through a terrible civil war.
True! A civil war though makes an "ordinary" war look quite civilized and "noble". A commentator before said that war is the end of civilization. And now, many of us are bickering about what it is, propaganda or not, who are the good and who are the bad ones and so on. Someone made a film based on it, good for them. He is supposed to be one-sided, who wouldn't? He wrote a book about it, good for him.
Yes, Mr Gatzoyannis (unless he is ashamed to use his real family name and resorts to "Gage") had lost his mother during the civil war. So, is this propaganda? Of course it is BUT with more grains of truth than your average propaganda film, especially an American made. Acting was above average in general, although some members of the cast, notably Malkovich, could have done a slightly better job.
The bits I have seen show at least an accurate portrayal of rural Greece in the late 40's along with the political "turmoil" of the time. This is not a comment to the movie itself.
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