ELENI

US, 1985, 114 minutes, Colour.
Kate Nelligan, John Malkovich, Linda Hunt, Rosalie Crutchley, Glenne Headley, Oliver Cotton.
Directed by Peter Yates.

Eleni is based on the book by Nicholas Gage who acted as producer of this film. The screenplay was written by Steve Tesich (who collaborated with the director Peter Yates for Breaking Away and The Eyewitness).

The film focuses on a Greek peasant woman, a mother of five who is executed during the Greek Civil War of the '40s. The film also focuses on her son, now a journalist with the New York Times, who sets out to track down his mother's executioner. The two strands of the screenplay are interwoven.

Kate Nelligan (Eye of the Needle, Without a Trace) acts with great dignity as Eleni. John Malkovich (The Killing Fields, Places in the Heart) is an effective Gage. Greek and British actors and actresses take the supporting roles. Linda-Hunt? appears as a Greek peasant mother as well.

The film is impressive to look at, has an atmospheric musical score by Australian Bruce Smeaton. It is emotional and thought-provoking.

1. The impact of the film? The two stories? Drama? portrait of a heroic woman?

2. The atmosphere of World War Two? The atmosphere of the Civil War? Location photography in Greece: the villages, the mountains, the occupation? The contrast with the United States of the '70s and '80s: the world of newspapers and technology? The Greece of the '70s and '80s: the same villages, the cities? The effective counterpoint?

3. Editing and the two stories interwoven? The parallels and development? The shifts in mood? Exercise in memory and understanding? The musical score and the moods?

4. The film as an autobiography of Nicholas Gage? The intensity of his obsession? His needs, memories? To rediscover his family's story? An understanding of his mother? Her last words and her heritage? His own growth in freedom and love?

5. John Malkovich as Nick: the ordinary man, the reporter and his work, his relationship with his wife and its tensions, his love for his children? The decision to go to Greece and its effect on the family? His communications by tape? His obsession: the interviews, the Greek law and the amnesty after 30 years? His promotion, decision about Greece? Farewell?

6. His revisiting Greece, the memory of his mother's begging him not to return to Greece (and the symbol of the stone - and his ultimate leaving it behind)? The insertion of his memories into his search? Revisiting the village, encountering people, gathering information? The visit to Czechoslovakia to track down the emigrants? The files and the information? The offhanded attitude of the Czech official - and his hostile attitude towards the Greeks? His visit to the woman who testified against his mother? Her giving him the information? Her self-defence? His locating Katis? The witness of his mother's death and the information about her final words? The visit to Salonika? Katis's home, the child, the hospitality of his family? The interview, Gage luring him on, Katis's denials? The photo? The knife and the gun? The dramatics of the child walking into the room? The firing of the shot that killed Eleni and audience expectations? Yet Gage not being able to hate enough? His being purged? Throwing the gun into the sea, leaving the stone behind? His ability to pardon? Rediscovering his own heritage? His mother's love and his ability to communicate that? His return to New York, reconciliation with his wife and children? 'My children!'?

Nicholas as a character in view of his early life in Greece: his father and involvement in the war, absence, going to the United States, the hope for settling in the U.S.? His relationship with his sisters? His grandmother? His age, his love for his mother and her care for him? His overhearing pieces of information? The occupation and his experience of the Civil War? The attacks? Katis and the speech about sending the children to communist countries? The hunger of the children? The death of Katina? His mother's work, the plan for the escape, sharing in the escape? His memories? His sisters and their poverty, their upbringing? Eleni searing her daughter's leg to avoid conscription? The next girl working in the army? The sisters and their support of their mother, the escape? The final information about their presence in the U.S.?

7. The portrait of Eleni - through the eyes of Nicholas, through his memories? An objective portrait for the audience? The blend of the two? Eleni’s mother and the way that she was brought up? Her subservience and doing others' work? Her reaction and taking a stance? The war and her husband's absence? her children and her possessiveness, her affection? her searing her daughter's leg and her defiance? The conscription of the second girl? The hostility of Katina? The effect of the Civil War, the work gangs, poverty and hunger, the military attacks and the shootings? The meeting concerning the children going to the communist countries? The bread and the bribes? The reconciliation with Katina? Her execution? The schoolteacher and friendship, the final request that her daughter come to her in the prison? Her final words with her daughter? Her love for her children and her stealing the bread, organising the escape? Her forceful personality? The final work gang, her arrest, dragged into the town, charges, imprisonment, torture and interrogation? The trial and its foregone conclusion? The woman witnessing against her to save her baby? The group, to be executed? her final defiant cry 'My children'? A portrait of an ordinary woman, her impact?

8. The women of the village: Katina, the children, their plight, peasants being used by authorities, work, invitation to go to communist countries, bribes of bread? The stances of the women? The men of the town, elderly men not able to go to the war? Organising the escape? Executions? The soldiers and their presence, being victims of the authorities?

9. Katis and the schoolteacher? The school sequence, the escape of the teacher, his return with the communists? The Civil War, the mountain battles, the work forces? The authorities and the moving of the children? Executions? Trials? The aftermath of the war? The 30 years passing, the veterans getting old? Going back to Greece? Gage's question of how Katis could still be alive after all that he had done?

10. The attention to detail of life in Greece? Suffering? The new Greece, the '70s and '80s, the past and the transition of cultures? Education? Achievement?

11. The film as a blend of the epic and the personal?