Kirpianuscus sketch of portrait. superficial, pathetic, protected by music by Vangelis and the customs. each of the last represents the virtue of film who saves it to be a fiasco. in fact, only sin is the ambition to create a memorable film about the most important Greek painter from art history of Spain. the theme is generous, the possibilities to define Domenikos Teotokopoulos as hero of his period - too many. but the script is just a collection of clichés. the choice of Manichean way is far to be inspired. the use of ambiguity and inaccuracy not serves the cause in better manner. the dialogs are , in many scenes, fake. the speeches of El Greco front of his judges is far to be convincing for public. something essential missing. a pillar, maybe an axis. and except Sotiris Moustakas as Titian, nothing does the film to be more than cold dish. the desire of actors to give coherence to roles is closed by the not most inspired script and the director who choose a sketch not a portrait.so, poor El Greco !

Cédric Magnien Well, I guess I never saw such a pathetic movie. The actors are absolutely ridiculous, acting at a tragi-comic level which would be hilarious if it would be volunteer. The directing is absolutely show-off, with a pointless use of multiple huge movements of camera, but without defined subjects, which creates a deep impression of emptiness in any single shot of this movie. To make a Hollywood-like movie doesn't consist only in moving the camera in big panoramic shots showing lots of expensive (though sometimes quite "cheap looking") costumes.There's no use of the image's depth, no correct framing, it is just a piece of work trying to achieve the aesthetic of the American productions, but without the knowledge of cinema necessary to achieve such a production.But the worst is still to come: the dialogues, the characters and of course, because they have to act it, the actors.The guy who plays Titiano is doing quite well... except that he has for the most 3 lines to say. And there's nothing presenting the influence he had on El Greco, whereas he could have lift the movie by his good acting. That's all. All the rest is pathetic.The dialogues are like coming from a Monthy Python 3rd degree film (where do they find such a tragically bad writer, by the way? Did this guy ever saw "real" movies? Is he watching only Greek serials?), and anyway the actors would certainly not have been able to put good dialogues into live action (at least considering the low performance they achieved all the movie long...).But the most disappointing part is the characters: the evolution of the relations between the two main characters (El Greco and De Guevara), which could have been interesting, is treated without any nuances (El Greco super white shiny hero and De Guevara super bad black dark guy... the Light on one side and the Shadow on the other... even George Lucas was more subtle in Star Wars when he created the characters of Darth Vador and Luke Skywalker!!! although they were pretty poor characters...;-)Stays the striking line: "Can light overcome darkness?" Thanksfully, El Greco is dead and will never discover how strong becomes darkness when cinema comes to the hands of such illiterate "artists". Light in this movie? Maybe the light of lovely Crete at the beginning (when it is not cheap computer generated images), and through a window at some point, but that's all. Everything else consists in deep darkness!I didn't even mention the hilarious (thus tragic, since they are aiming at being serious!) acting of Dimitra Matsouka and Lakis Lazopoulos, who should better stay on TV...as the director, the dialogs writer and the script-writer.TV is a cheap entertainment, cinema is an art. Some people should understand it before waisting money.El Greco getting an Oscar? Guys, let's be serious: Nyfes was a real movie and didn't get any. Politikh Kouzina was an interesting period movie, and didn't win anything. How could El Greco be even just nominated. It would be insulting the cinema community! Hollywood might produces awful and stupid movies, but at least most of the time they hire guys who know a bit what is cinema!If "Plan 9 from outer-space" wasn't so unreachable, El Greco could certainly compete for the worst movie ever (at least for the "Worst Serious Expensive Movie Ever").

xerogo First of all, I don't think it is at all a DVD movie but an enjoyable film to watch at the cinema. The aesthetic of the film captures the audience's attention throughout the film. I personally think that the photography is excellent in the film as well as the direction. It tends to be a bit slow and without a lot of action but the audience understands that the film is not about action as it is an artistic and cultural film that tries (successfully) to bring out the souls of the characters to touch the audience. I agree that Dimitra Matsouka's performance was not strong enough but the performance's of Nick Ashdon, Laia Marull and especially Juan Diego Botto are well appreciated. The scenery and costumes are an accurate capture of the time period and beautiful to watch on screen. The plot is original as there are certain twists that one would not expect (for example El Greco's relationship with women)and the music is exceptional. The film is generally a great attempt on showing the potential quality of the Greek film industry throughout Europe. I think that there must be a good reason for 'El Greco' already winning 8 awards including best director in the Thessaloniki film festival!!

Christos_Stamos This is a film that tries too hard at "grandeur" and ends up nothing more than pompous dreck. El Greco's life and work are worthy of much better than this lifeless, corny exploration. The film boasts some of the most laughable, cringe-worthy dialog to grace the big screen -- a pretty devastating deficiency in what is supposed to be a "character film". In fact, I had serious trouble finding lines that were not shamelessly cribbed from dozens of period pieces which preceded this. I was half-expecting someone in the audience to break out with "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition", as this material screams for the Monty Python treatment. Someone should tell the makers of "El Greco" that it takes more than costumes and passable set-pieces to create a period film ; most importantly, it takes believable dialog and characters. The protagonists in El Greco talk like persons living in post-Enlightenment Europe (and very often, like outright contemporaries of ours). I am sorry, but no Renaissance painter (much less El Greco) would try to defend his art in front of the Inquisition by stating that "all art is blasphemy anyways". A good indication of the quality of the film is the manner in which Theotokopoulos is presented as painting ; like most childish depictions, he doesn't paint, so much as "attack" the canvas, presumably because all great painters fence with their canvases (rolls eyes). Incidentally, rolling your eyes is something that you will be doing quite often, should you choose to suffer through the countless clichés in the film. Ranging from the "talented person in a foreign land", to the two dimensional "villain", and the "love for the villain's daughter", this film manages to take a historical personality and turn him into a typical Hollywood-derivative cliché. Quite the accomplishment. The narration, too, is particularly tiresome and trite ; I usually love movies with narration, and yet, with this one, it seemed like they managed to hit all the wrong, hackneyed notes from start to finish. And all of this without taking the ridiculous, deus ex machina excuse for a conclusion into account.Widely promoted as "the most important Greek production ever" (of which there seems to be a new one every year), El Greco seems bound to achieve considerable commercial success in the Greek market. But it is the kind of movie most people will claim to like, and no one will bother to see twice. Which, after all, is the true indicator of a film's appeal. We weren't expecting loud explosions and car chases on a production about El Greco ; but a reasonable, intelligent plot and dialog that would not make you squirm in your seat in embarrassment would have been nice.Not recommended. For those that missed it, worry not. You'll have another "greatest Greek production ever" foisted on you by the Greek television channel-sponsors to look forward to next year.