Few days ago, I watched the AMAZING "The Last Note"; its a modern Greek film from director Voulgaris, about the execution of the 200 prisoners in Kaisariani, the May 1st 1944.
That film was INCREDIBLY good. And, it was about 200 people. This film here, is about one of THE WORST CRIMES the Nazis did in the entire Europe (and of course one of the two worst in Greece). The ENTIRE male population from 14 to 65 was executed, while the ENTIRE city burned to the ground and only young kids and women left on the ruins to weeping.
So... I was expecting this film to be AT LEAST EQUAL GOOD with Voulgaris' "The Last Note". Unfortunately, is very bad! I gave just 5/10, in the memory of my survivor (and still living) father-in-law STEFANOS RODOPOYLOS, who lived second by second all these events as 13 years old boy. The film is BELLOW the 5/10, without the kindness for my father-in-law's experiance...
Why is so bad?
Firstly, the production was very poor. With few dollars, they tried to create an epic-dramatic film about the Kalavryta's Holocaust". They had SO FEW men to playing all these roles. The entire German "117th Division" (that did the crime in Kalavryta city) were... 10-12 actors, the most! ALL the actors playing German roles, they were speaking... Oxford's English (!) and in very few moments you could listen a couple German shouts like "Move on!" or "Forward!" (in German).
The shots from the Kalavryta of 1943, where ONLY 30 minutes long (in this SHORT film of 96 total minutes). The production didn't have much money to create "sets" and re-create a Greek city of the '40s. They just found an existing place (in modern Greece) and took SOME/FEW shots to represent the Kalavryta of 1943.
Secondly, the script/scenario was EXTREMELY POOR & SILLY! If you watch the film (without knowing the real events, doesn't matter) you will LAUGH from the naive-childish script. An example?
...The German Division's commander, is entering a Greek house and he's "forcing" the Greek owners to accept him (and his deputy commander) and stay/live in their house for few days. The Greek owner was member of the Resistance and in the middle of the night (while the two Germans officers were sleeping!) he left the house to join his Resistance's friends... they opening fire and fighted with Germans... he returns back to his home quite badly injured... and his wife took care his wounds all night long!
The next day, the family younger boy is hiding his father's bloody clothes into their yard... the German commander WATCHING the boy... and he simply asked him politely "what were you doing in the yard, early morning?"...!!!!
The father LEFT HIS OCCUPIED HOUSE... there were NO GERMAN guards in or out the house (while their COMMANDING OFFICER was sleeping inside!)... he joined his Resistance friends and OPENED FIRE (battle) to the Germans in the middle of the quite night (!!!)... he returned injured and spilling blood... his wife took care his wound ALL NIGHT LONG... and NOBODY hear or found anything about it!
Not even a 6 years old kid would wrote such naive-silly script!
A lot historical inaccuracies - we're talking for A LOT of them, not few - bad dialogues, bad screenplay acting (EXCEPT the great Max von Sydow), etc.
Unfortunaly, they lost a GREAT opportunity to create an EPIC film, about one of the GREATEST NAZI's crime in Europe. Nope, is not a good film, sorry.
