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.

macduff50 This film seems to have unjustly attracted a lot of nonsensical comments, mostly from left of center commentators; and it's sadly revealing how the facts cited by other viewers are not even addressed, but simply ignored by the left-ist commentators. Those who accuse the film of being anti-communist propaganda mostly use ad hominem arguments, and insult and invective. But ask yourself: what good is a political view which assumes itself (because it is self-described as "revolutionary") to be above ordinary moral or political criticism? If that were true, then there could never be any way to judge the value of the actions performed in its name. In short, this is a reasonably good film, with a fine performance by Kate Nelligan, and much less good work by other members of the cast. The direction is not inspired, and the flashback structure of the film seeks to maximize the emotional effects without stopping to consider just how powerful those effects are all by themselves, that is, the use of that structure betrays the fear of the film-makers that the story might not have the impact they wanted it to have. The original book is stronger, but it too is flawed by Nicholas Gage's failure to ask himself about how it was that the communists picked on his mother, even though he presents some of the evidence that answers the question. It's clear from the book that some members of his family -- I think his grandfather, but it's been a long time since I read the book -- had serious disputes with other people in the village in the 20s and 30s and perhaps even earlier, and that there may even have been a murder involved; naturally, Gage is not all that clear on the point. The communists, men, most of them, couldn't go after the grandfather, so, brave souls that they were, went after the most vulnerable: the Gage womenfolk. Despicable, but that is often the tenor of village and peasant life. And to me, this was the message of the book, that the politics of revolution were, in many cases, simply another weapon in the never-ending village war between its own members. The problem with the film is that it never really clarifies this central aspect of the drama, and so the power of Nelligan's performance is marooned. It affects, but it's almost in a vacuum, and Malkovich's portrayal of Gage, which I thought quite good, is similarly detached; but the flaw lay in the original book, which ducks important questions because Gage, North American that he is, simply doesn't understand the deeper currents of village life. Worth a look, no matter its flaws. No work of art is ever perfect, and this one gets high marks for trying.

trpdean As another reviewer wrote, this is a movie about a family, not about politics - even though it is terror that causes that family to be harmed. As the mother, Kate Nelligan is absolutely superb, shining, wonderful. As the son as an adult, John Malkovich is curiously detached. Again, although the movie was first rate, I question the decision to alternate time periods with a parallel narratives throughout. I think it lessens the impact. I see no reason the story couldn't be told chronologically, to greater effect. Those two reviewers from Argentina and Greece who wrote that the movie was propaganda are being silly. Neither this movie nor anyone denies that the Communists (and those democrats defending the former king and government who had returned to power after the war - the king wishing to reign but not rule) fought the Nazis during the Second World War. This movie does not take place during that war - and doesn't refer to it. Further, when the Second World War ended, there WERE no native Greek fascists fighting in the Civil War - when a reviewer writes that this was a fascist war, it's crazy. In the movie, you hear the Communists using the term, "fascist" in the same loose propagandistic way that, say, Prime Minister Tony Blair is referred to as a fascist - falsely. As the Soviet Union's proxies looked to be gaining in the Civil War, Britain asked the United States to participate in an effort to aid the Greek government with financial aid and weapons. over this and the Communist insurgency in turkey, was the Truman doctrine of containment of Communist totalitarianism born. These are simply facts. Moreover, the fact that the Greek Communists took tens of thousands of children from their parents and shipped them off to Communists countries such as Albania and Czechoslovakia is obviously well-documented in the book and movie. However, as I wrote above, the movie simply looks at a human story of a mother and her love for her children. Kate Nelligan makes the movie heartfelt, moving, powerful. She should have won the Oscar for this performance.

Mag-13 Other people commenting on this film complain about its being mere propaganda against communism and supporting fascism. What a lot of baloney. It's about mothers and children, and about how, no matter what kind of brawl is going on, the men run to the hills, leaving the women and children behind to be brutalized. And it's about how one woman lost her life because she refused to give her children up to the state, no matter who that state was.