Harikleia Harikleia It is clear from some of the more glowing reviews that this film tends to be judged by its value as a true story, and I will take the same approach.Zero stars. Anyone who knows anything about the Greece of the 40s can recognise Gage's book about his mother for the cynical money spinner that it is. The film dishes up the same claptrap.The much-maligned ELAS was the only effective resistance organisation in Greece. It was loved and supported by the majority of Greeks, due to its commitment to the fight against fascism, its strict discipline and its respect for the rights and needs of the Greek people. Its founder Ares Velouchiotis became a legend in his own time, a byword for military genius, toughness and fairness, with numerous songs composed about him even before his death. After the British handed Greece over to the collaborators, the criminal classes and the pusillanimous, civil war was inevitable. Eventually Greek children were moved across the border to escape the napalm that was being dropped on them by America, but with parental approval. As Gage concedes, Eleni was executed by ELAS for treachery, and her name is still hated in her village today.

mikki_dr09 One of my favorites movies. I love the end because let us a great learning about what is important in what we do in our lives. Many times what we will like to do is not the correct action. We can't do what we don't believe and in what our parents teach us. This movie remember my mother when Kate shout "my children's" at the moment she was killed. My mother fight for us so we can be proud of her forever. The acting of Kate and Nicolas are wonderful. Was a good decision in selecting both for this movie and the idea to filmed this real story. Movies like this should be consider by the producers for the new presentations.

jtpaladin Folks, please ignore the silly left-wingers who have decided to post their hateful remarks about this great film.Speaking as a Greek-American, who's father was a partisan in WWII, the story as shown in the film was exactly as it happened. Yes, there was a terrible civil war following WWII but it was an attempt by the Soviet Union to extend its' power into the southern Balkans. The Soviets backed communists in Greece and the Allies backed non-communists. After a long and bloody conflict, that also resulted in thousands of Greek children being stolen from their parents and shipped to Eastern Bloc countries, the war ended with the non-communists as victors.Now, be sure that like in every bloody civil war, there were atrocities committed on both sides. But fighting against the communists was the right course of action since they did not favor free elections, would have instituted a tyrannical govt., and would have dragged Greece into the Eastern Bloc for 50 years.As for the kidnapping of the children, the blow to Greece's manpower was tragic. It would be the equivalent if millions of children were taken from American parents. Truly a nightmare. But a nightmare that could have been averted if the filthy communist scumbags had been stopped early on. It was Churchill that wanted to land troops in Greece for just such a reason during WWII but the Soviet dominated alliance nixed such an idea, leaving Greece wide open for chaos and an atmosphere for civil war.Anyway, the film was truly accurate in its' portrayal of the political climate of the time, the brutality of the communists, and the end result of this horrendous period. I highly recommend it as a lesson in what many countries of that, and later periods, encountered with communist insurrections. I also highly recommend it as a powerful testament of a mothers' love to protect her children from the ensuing chaos of war and tragedy.

Michael Morrison Stunning performances by Kate Nelligan and most of the cast in this powerful story, based on truth, help make this a must-see film.I wonder if some of the reviewers, such as onceuponatime500, really saw the movie, or if they just wrote from some vicious and preconceived bias.The communists come to the village to conscript -- kidnap -- children to become guerrilla fighters. The mother, Eleni, takes a drastic step, mutilating her oldest child to spare her from being shanghaied into the communist forces.Being communists, they will not be thwarted, not by any such reactionary notions as self-ownership, or freedom, or parental rights, or any of that silly stuff: They take the next oldest girl instead.Eleni loves her children and believes, foolishly according to onceuponatime500, but in line with what Charlie Anderson (James Stewart) in "Shenandoah" said: They're my children, not the state's, not some murderous movement's.For years after seeing this powerful and haunting story, I could recall Nelligan's last scene and be moved to tears.The agony Eleni went through was duplicated millions of times in the bloody 20th Century, as some government or another, or some tyrannical movement or another, kidnapped young people to force them to risk their lives for some cause most of them didn't understand, much less support.Think Viet Cong, think Hitler's armies, think Stalin's and Mao's imperialist and aggressive armies, and, yes, think of the poor draftees from the United States.Think, contrastingly, of parents, parents who spent years loving and caring for their children, hoping those children would be able to live to a better adulthood than their parents. Think of those parents seeing their children sometimes literally torn from their grasp, thrown into lines to be cannon fodder for cruel warlords -- communists, Nazis, imperialists of one kind or another, even when disguised as crusaders."Eleni" works at almost every level except for the incredibly horrible performance by John Malkovich. If it hadn't been seen as anti-communist, even Hollywood would have honored "Eleni." But its being anti-communist made "Eleni" an outcast in that artistically and morally corrupted town. However, "Eleni" is powerful drama.Added 25 November 2017: Watching "Eleni" on YouTube, I am wondering if my dislike of John Malkovich's performance is at least as much for how unpleasant he makes Nick Gage. As portrayed by Malkovich, Gage is rude, cold, aloof; he has no personality, doesn't respond to people, not even to his wife who asks questions. As performed by Malkovich, Gage's personality is enough to chase away a viewer.We are now exactly 100 years after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, an event that led to hundreds of millions of deaths, and destruction of entire nations, of entire peoples. There is an irony in Nick Gage's working for The New York Times, which has been frequently pro-communist, and nearly always anti-anti- communist, with its Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty infamously painting a rosy picture of the Soviet Union during the time of the murderous monster Josef Stalin.This century anniversary makes "Eleni" even more poignant and even more important.