Rating: 
Summary: pretentious blaha
Review: One of the most pretentious attempts to overdo things, this one is utterly boring. It is too long. One hour of it is totally useless. And a display of artistic ego and navel gazing. Nothing else. Unfortunately, it also became one of those movies that rightly did not pass thru the meticulous Cannes Festival, and the prize went fairly to Kusturica's "Underground".
It is supposed to be about Bosnia and the conflict in Balkans, but what we see an aimlessly wandering Keitel - who apparently does not know why he is in that movie - and lots of meaningless shots and empty monologues.
That said, let us get the record straight. Theo Anghelopoulos is one of the greatest film makers and humanists ever, and this is frankly his worst movie. Because he is uneven. He created a masterpiece: "Eternity and a Day", which is a must for movie lovers.
His "Theatre Company" (1975) and "Landscape in a Mist" (1985) are other jewels. Demand and wait for them instead.
Rating: 
Summary: snoozer
Review: Roger Ebert was right on. This movie does not need a mumbler like Kietel. anyway, if this is your taste in cinema - you might find these DVD's more entertaining, if you want a haunting film, pick up "Aguirre:The Wrath of God" and if you are into a "one mans mystical journey film" pick up Andrei Tarkovskys "Nostalghia".
Rating: 
Summary: Enigmatic
Review: Sorry for the review in Spanish, but it's easier for me to express myself in this language. La Mirada de Ulises es un poema. Como tal es indispensable verla repetidamente para poder comprender o al menos, poder entender mejor, su poderosa imaginería. La fotografía de la película es sin duda alguna, uno de sus grandes méritos. Lírica, portentosa, desoladora, son sólo alguno de los adjetivos con los que se podrían calificar escenas tales como la de La cabeza de Lenin flotando por el río, la de la destrozada Saravejo, o la de la densa neblina cubriendo la ciudad. A su vez, la música es un elemento de singular importancia que agrega belleza y armoniza las imágenes de la película. La Mirada de Ulises, es el viaje de un hombre en busca de algo que lo obsesiona. Un viaje que lo lleva a descubrir su pasado, sus raíces, la miseria de su gente y quizas a convertirse en una mejor persona, o tal vez al menos en una persona diferente. En contraste con lo apabullante de la fotografía, el tratamiento de los personajes y sus emociones es parco y sobrio. No hay emoción desbordada, ni una sensación de sufrimiento extremo (inclusive en el mismo Sarajevo, se siente un aire de resignación). La Mirada de Ulises es como dije una película para ver repetidamente e ir descubriendo poco a poco sus imágenes y sus personajes. La recomiendo con sinceridad para quienes quieran sentirse retados por el contenido intelectual de una película.
Rating: 
Summary: Enigma of Arrival
Review: The film starts slow and throws a lot of ideas at you which are not particularly clear. As a result you are confused right away. All we really know for sure is that Kietel is on a very personal journey. We soon find out that the reason the film is so confusing is that Keitel himself does not know just what kind of journey he is on. The first hour and a half is slow and the references to Homer and Joyce and Eliot are not particularly intriguing and all this literal content makes Keitels character talk a kind of pseudo-poetry which is just vague and stilted. That first half unwinds like an unformed(and unoriginal) idea and it does try your patience. The second half of the film is a lot better than the first half though. In the second half Angelopoulos leaves behind literal ideas which he doesn't seem that comfortable with anyway and just lets his instincts take over and thats when the film and Keitels performance become interesting. The last hour and a half unfolds like a dream/nightmare. An extended scene in the fog is especially memorable as the fog allows the inhabitants of Sarajevo to mingle in the streets as the fog provides cover from the snipers. In this fog it as if life resumes and people walk as if through a park on a Sunday. Its a scene which moves you in an ineffable way. To the very end it is unclear just what Keitel has found, if anything. And the very end Angelopoulos has Keitel read of Ulysses homecoming. This time the literary reference works because Angelopoulos has created a context for it. Because things are never as we left them or remember them or wish or expect them to be homecoming is merely a dream. I perfectly understand why some do not like this film, its three hours long and there is only a very vaguely discernible storyline. I think this film is for film fans who really enjoy finding a director with a new kind of vision. I don't think Ulysses Gaze is his best though and its not the one I would recommend seeing first. The first one I saw was Travelling Players and that remains my favorite and the one I would recommend a person new to Angelopoulos start with. Travelling Players is about a large theatre group/family and more effectively than Ulysses Gaze shows the disruptive (and worse) effect history has on peoples lives. Travelling Players is made up of a largely Greek cast and that makes the very Greek story all the more convincing and gives it a credibility and intimacy that some of his other films lack. Both Ulysses Gaze and Eternity and a Day star non-Greeks giving each of these films an international feel that is less appealing and more generic.
Rating:
Summary: DVD ruined by burnt-in subtitles
Review: The film: One of the finest achievements of european film in the nineties - and one of my all time favorites... But why did they mess up the images with too large and burnt-in subtitles? ... DVD subtitles should be *optional*!
Rating:
Summary: A True Masterpiece
Review: The New Year's Eve scene, the fog, the closing dialogue and countless other scenes spectacularly filmed. A moving, powerful film. Even the score by Eleni Karaindrou is one of the most moving I've ever heard. Not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Roger Ebert is mostly right
Review: The philosophy and intelligence that went into making this film is very admirable, but hey it doesn't make it a good film. Remember, it's the execution of the film that matters. And I think this film is executed in a very awkward fashion. Angelopoulos is clearly going for something transcendental here, with his sometimes-magical imagery (like the Lenin statue and the blue ship). But there are so many awkwardly staged scenes and Keitel's performance is so out-of-place that the film just doesn't work for me. If you want to see a really tremendous Eastern European film, go rent "Before the Rain", not this.
Rating:
Summary: Highly pretentious
Review: There are points in this film where I was totally convinced that Angelopoulos was astonished at his own profundity. The scene with the Lenin statue turning slowly in the boat goes on and on and on. And nothing happens. It is a shot of Lenin's head and hand. It occured to me that is was supposed to be profound, but it wasn't. This film is so slow, so heavy-handed, and so unforgivably arty that it's almost humorous. There was clearly a big problem with the translation of dialogue, and the characters speak in poetics. They are not real people. No one here is. This is like the longest, most arty home film ever made. Angelopoulos puts the viewer in his living room and runs his most personal movie for the viewer for THREE hours, and gives us nothing in return. Nothing to think about, barely anything to feel. And to think he was upset at not winning the Golden Palm. This is almost as appalling as his next film, Eternity and a Day.
Rating:
Summary: One of the top ten movies of the nineties if not the best!
Review: This film deserves all the supreme adjectives that you can imagine. Much more than a simple film ; this work will let you thinking due its deep and disturbing ideas involved. It deals about the human condition , the seek for the epic sense of our life , the bitter sight about the western civilization , the decadence of Greece in the actual world , the weight of the memory , the old images of our parents , the nosthalgy for our beloved country , the vulgarity vs. the aristos , the tragedy of a world that has lost its center , the insanity of the Balcan war , the reflexion about the ancient mythology , the fall of Lenin statue in the Danube , the unforgettable sequence between Kaitel and Josephson in that dark room in which Erland Josephson thinks in loud voice : I{m a cinema lover ; a collector of lost images!. This is a mythical journey through the devasted and hopeless Europe.
I don't know why , but i reminded all along the film this statement from Curzio Malaparte : "Europe is dead , because its sons are born from dead mothers". This thought emerges from Malaparte's pen when he watches a dying mother when his baby is born at once!
Let me tell you something . I've watching almost the films of this poet : Theo Angelopoulus , this film maker is at the level of the giants , I mean Tarkovsky , Bresson , Bergman or Fellini . And if you inquire me about his masterpiece this one wins by far .
Angeloulus thought in Al Pacino at first , but Pacino was busy in another work . So he decided for Kaitel and believe me : this became a wise decision , because Keitel has been one of the giants actors all over the world . And in this case Kaitel makes a personal tour de force and breathtaking acting .
There are so many issues involved in this picture that I hardly may comment in this brief review. But if you want to convince by yourself about an artistic film , this is for you.
Cannes : Grand Jury Prize winner 1995.
Rating:
Summary: Somnambulistic Etude
Review: This film is the cinematic equivalent of sleepwalking. Keitel wanders through this film like a ghost in search of a missing portion of his mystical anatomy. Ostensibly a search for legendary, missing reels of a deceased, early-modernist filmmaker, it is more a tale of the devastated, scorched landscape of the Balkans and the complete breakdown of civilization in the very cradle of Western civilization. The one scene that redeems this long and winding pilgrimage (ending in Sarajevo) is a balletic sequence of a barge toting a gigantic statue of Lenin, down the Danube, to, one imagines, a scrap yard for "recycling" and "salvage". One cannot help but admire the languid nature of this film and its irrational elements (its dreamlike story lines) in the face of the very real and ongoing meltdown of Southeast Europe that has occurred over the past half century. I watched this with several other people and there were moments of extreme impatience expressed with the dysfunctional structure of the edit. Afterall, however, the lacunae (holes) make perfect sense and these, plus the overall somnambulistic nature of the film, converge to leave a mark (in the mind's eye) that is best described as elegiac and defiant, despite the virtual apocalyptic denouement.
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