Truly Dreadful Film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The screenplay is at times good, the sets and costumes passable, the story is good and nearer to the truth than most biopics -it even attempts to wove social and philosophical themes into the life of a gifted artist and his relationship with the man who admired him but could not become him.But, the photography is standard fare -as if it were made for television. The cinematographer fails miserably to grasp the opportunity afforded by telling the life of a painter in authoring with light and shadow and colors. It seems they did nothing but use textbook light and print what was in the camera without any of the care that makes Spielberg's cinematographers worth applauding.The direction is honest but it falls into the trap of directing actors in what to do and how to do it, instead of allowing them to breathe their own life into the film, for themselves. The actors, most of the time are the slaves of the cinematographer as puppets in ever-changing dramatic photographs.Nick Ashdon portrayed the main character as well as he was allowed by a limp and insecure director -unfortunately watching Nick Ashdon as El Greco was an exercise in trying to remember that I was not watching Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love.Juan Diego Botto as Niño de Guevara must have, in rehearsals, given director Smaragdis an expression from a certain camera angle that the director liked a lot, so he must have asked Botto to keep repeating it throughout the movie.There are some really bizarre moments of editing that make you wonder whether the director was interfering in the editor's work without the skill to do so, or whether the editor sneaked-in a few cuts that the director missed before the release. Then again they might have both been trying to make a dramatic statement but the efforts bore no fruit.This film is a genuinely honest effort by a genuine Greek director and crew to make a labor of love in telling the story and the soul of a great man. I urge you to watch it with this in mind. Because otherwise you will watch a film where the director, despite his passion, just didn't have what it takes.

I wanted to see this movie. The one with the highest budget in all Greek history. Well.. I still don't know where all that money was spent.It lacks of almost everything. No good dialogues, good actors wasted due to a, being good, a very poor script. It's a voice in off who tells you most part of the story... why do you want actors then I asked.Probably the customs, colours and music is the only thing you can remember after watching it but not enough. I wanted to stop the movie several times cause is so superficial. You don't get involved at all with any of the characters, not with the story. Actually you don't care about El Greco after 20 min watching it.I could feel the same frustration when I saw "El Capitán Alatriste". The Spanish movie with the highest budget ever in this country. Very, very disappointing. El Greco is, with all my respects, The Greek-Crap.

I found the film annoying and typically absent of a dialogue worthy of an adult mind. El Greco's paintings have been a source of intellectual debate both on political and artistic merit for all who have been inspired by them. This film strips the artist of any personality worthy of interest let alone 'greatness'. As a film I found it a flamboyant show of theatrical characterisations intent on visually seducing the audience, instead of intellectually rousing them. It has been a long time since I burst out laughing at a scene intended to make me weep, and for this I feel strangely ashamed. Contradictions run rife throughout the film ending with a grand finale close to comical. I hasten to add that the leading actors did the best they could and there were two memorable scenes for me - but I came away feeling that a particular style of theatre had been taken to the screen - with a script gasping for help!

I was as much excited about watching this movie as i was disappointed when i finally watched it. There is talk about the film getting an Oscar, i don't see how, it had no depth, the characters seemed out of place, there was no built up in their relationships with each other. This is true in many parts of the film like in the case of Titiano El Greco's mentor. The part of Titiano was played by an extraordinary Greek actor whose lines weren't more than 3. There should have been more fire between the student and the mentor, more dialogue more give and take, unfortunately Moustakas wasn't let to demonstrate his enormous talent and to add to the film as much as he could have. This is very much the case with el Greco and Guevara who kept calling each other "old friend" with irony of course. Almost nothing was shown about their relationship and about their opposite philosophies. The movie kept jumping decades forward without even scratching the surface of the two characters psyche which is a shame because the interaction of the two could have been extremely interesting and stimulating. All in all it was a movie with nothing but beautiful bright colours,great music but no heart.