Ulysses' Gaze · reception & legacy
1995 · Theo Angelopoulos
How Ulysses' Gaze has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
At Cannes 1995 it took the Grand Prix but famously lost the Palme d'Or to Kusturica's Underground — and Angelopoulos made his displeasure plain from the podium — while critics split between 'masterpiece' and 'monument to tedium.' Three decades on it's settled in as a cornerstone of 1990s art cinema and the slow-cinema canon.
What's debated
The perennial fight: transcendent epic or three punishing hours of fog and long takes — with a side debate over whether Harvey Keitel is soulful or stranded in it.
Its footprint
The dismantled Lenin statue drifting down the Danube on a barge is one of the decade's most referenced images, shorthand for the end of the communist century — and Eleni Karaindrou's mournful score has a devoted life of its own.
Where it stands
A badge-of-honour watch for slow-cinema devotees and a standard gateway into Angelopoulos, more revered than rewatched.