Friday, 26 February 2016

The Englishman who went down a mine

Zorba the Greek (1964)

Directed by Michael Cacoyannis this film based on the novel of the same name stars Athony Quinn, Alan Bates, Lila Kedrova and Irene Papas. An uptight English writer heads to Crete to reopen an old mine and acquires the company of an older Greek man who is a bit of a scoundral.

Covering a large range of tones this film does a good job balancing them as it explores the tragedy and joy of human life. At times the story seems like a fairly light hearted tale of a fish out of water but is underscored by a couple of fairly shocking moments of tragedy. While the characters have fairly large flaws in their personality there is always enough charm to keep you watching this film which has more the a little influence from the Italian neo-realist school.


4/5

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