zografialep A very beautiful and moving film. Personally, despite the many mistakes I saw myself, I enjoyed it overall. There are beautiful costumes, amazing and fitting music, and in general good acting(though at some point the English of some Greeks sounded too 'accented' and it looked like they had trouble expressing themselves). The editing was a bit weird, and at some points the story was not explained quite well- I still don't understand how he contributed to the Revolution, though we can imagine he gave money. However, I was very happy it was filmed. The Greeks no longer produce much due to economical difficulties, and most importantly-for this case- they don't produce historical films.The only ones we can see are those from the 60'-70', and the quality is naturally bad. Historical films are always a bit inaccurate, but they are an incredible source of learning. We had a glimpse of what Greece after the Revolution was like, how was the civil war, the poverty, the British involvement. I knew these things from history books, but after this film I can picture it in my head, I have an idea of what Greece looked like at the end of the Ottoman era. It still might not be a perfect film, or even good for some, but for me it needed to be made.In order to create good things, we need to make a start. We cant say 'there's no money,we'll make a bad movie anyway so better leave it'. Even if it is a flawed movie due to the lack of funds, it is something,it is art. A beautiful film about an important part of our history.

lizy24 The pairing of incompetence, lack of any talent whatsoever, stupidity, bad writing, half-arsed directorial effort, mediocre to bad acting and a rather interesting historical topic produced this sorry excuse of a movie presented by the Greek media as some kind of event-flick or masterpiece. But Greek audiences are aware by now of the low standards of every film director (lol) Yannis Smaragdis ever cobbled together and are not and will not be fooled again by this charlatan who thinks that a few swinging drapes in front a window stand for high art. Smaragdi go home u imbecile and leave cinema to the younger generations who lately make movies with international success compared to you who tries to suck up to the press so your non-cinematic drivel looks like something worth peoples time & money. A low point in Greek cinema history. The lowest of the low.

vk_vkgr A movie very close to Varvakis life. A movie that shows that Greeks are exactly like that , we always let our Βenefactors like Varvakis to die & always act like traitors for the interest of the wealthy countries(as long as our pocket is full with money). Something that still happens today. I believe that this is what Smaragdis is trying to tell us. But unfortunately we cannot handle the truth. If Smaragdis had more funds he could make it even better. Some of the special effects (like the destruction of the Turkish fleet) could have been better. But these cost. The change between languages might sound a little confusing but it was a necessity . A big bravo for Mr Smaragdis, i enjoyed the complex of this movie much more than El-Greco.

tinakewy God may love caviar but I did not love the film. I wanted to, desperately. I am Greek so I *really* wanted this to be an awesome, magical film... it wasn't.The story starts off great, as being told by Varvakis' loyal footman, on a sandy beach of Zakynthos (Zante), to a bunch of children. It starts like a beautiful fairytale, but gets confusing very quickly.It feels like there are 500 people being introduced into the film and we don't even get to get their names. There is zero, and I mean zero, depth to them. As a Greek, I recognized all the Greek actors, some of them pretty popular in Greece, who only got maybe 5 minutes of acting... some only 30 seconds on screen. We are never told who they are, why they are doing the things they are doing...Another issue I had was, that time was not acknowledged as passing. We see Varvakis who is dressed as a Cretan but we later find out by accident he was from the island of Psarra, getting introduced to his baby girl who is at the time less than a year old. Then then next solid time reference we get is, it is 10 years later in Russia. He doesn't appear aged one bit and his daughter appears all the way from Greece, but instead of the child being 11-12 years old, she looks to be about 30-ish (yet Varvakis is still the same, not a single gray hair, he could have posed as his wife).Another thing that struck me as odd was the choice of key actors... they were ugly. I am not used to seeing unattractive people on screen. No, I did not expect to see models but at least some sort of make-up, some sort of aesthetics... their looks made them uninteresting.Another thing is, there is no explaining of historical facts at all. For instance all the references to the Greek Revolution were only understood by the audience, because we are Greek and we have been taught our history in school. However when some history of Russia popped up during the film, we had no clue and no explanation was given. I imagine if this film makes it to an international audience, unless they are avid history buffs, they will be mystified as well. I imagine the film was intended to be presented to an international audience, because the lead is a German actor, and the whole thing is shot in English.There are positive aspects of the film as well. Sebastian Koch is absolutely magnificent in his role. He is very believable and convincing. So is Evgeniy Stychkin!! These two make the film barely watchable and bravo to them!! Another bravo to all the Greek actors, who for once!, learned their lines in English perfectly and with a good accent!!Taking into consideration all the biographical films I have seen, this attempt seems cheap and amateurish. The story was there, it was an interesting life but it felt half-baked and soulless. I did not connect with a single character except his footman (Evgeniy Stychkin). There was no drama, no thrill, no romance, no danger... it felt like reading the newspaper to me. The costumes were also very cheap, you could tell, there was no detailing.. they felt like Halloween costumes. However the sets were very nice!!In short, amateurish attempt, felt like reading a biography in Reader's Digest to me. I was left confused and in a blur about what had happened, the time line in which it happened and couldn't remember a single character from the dozens that were presented to us other than the two main ones...