Georgia
In direct contrast to the book, The Life and Times of Alexis Zorba, the movie is extremely misogynistic, needlessly cruel, and tediously paced. The villagers are depicted as unimaginable monsters - unprincipled, shameless villains, without morals or character. Extremely disappointing, as a whole; it should never have won an Academy Award, let alone three. To add insult to injury, Rotten Tomatoes bestowed favorable ratings, which brings into question your seemingly biased process. Given the opportunity to rate Rotten Tomatoes, I would unequivocally say you're an unreliable source for entertainment seekers - two thumbs down. 👎 👎
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
08/08/23
Full Review
William L
"A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope, and be free."
This movie has a very fitting title, because it begins and ends with Anthony Quinn's main character. Attracting massive acclaim upon release and still considered among the actor's most significant performances, Zorba (the character) comes to life as an individual filled with a hearty love of life, making grand plans that ultimately fail or never live up to expectations before reinvigorating himself with more loud talk, drinking, dancing, and once again making plans. He's displayed as not entirely a virtuous figure, being often unreliable or untrustworthy in his ultimate pursuit of a well-lived life, but with a core of infectious vitality that ultimately sees him through virtually all hardships, totally immune to the reality around him. Quinn really eats up the role, throwing plenty of energy into his performance and demanding the audience's attention whenever he appears.
The rest of the film is really just set dressing for Zorba, including Alan Bates as Basil, Zorba's uptight supposed behavioral foil that never offers any real contrast. There are subplots in the village (in particular a widow that falls for Basil and is ultimately murdered when she does not accept a local boy as her husband before he kills himself) that don't really feel particularly thematically hefty or relevant, they just offer a glimpse into a natural brutality and coldness that supposedly substantiates Zorba's boisterous way of life by contrast, but it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. You don't have to be either a happy-go-lucky layabout or a cruel traditionalist. There is a happy medium that the film overlooks.
Worth a watch for Quinn alone, but also a surprisingly cutting scene where a woman finds her house being looted down to the shutters at the moment of her death. (3.5/5)
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
08/01/22
Full Review
Marina T
I haven't watched that film for a long time, but I love it. I know people may think it's too violent but I have to say, as a native of Greece, it is amazing. The location in which the film was recorded is Chania, my lovely town, more specifically in Theriso, in the countryside. The cretan villagers were always really friendly to the foreigners, but they used to hide their dark side. I still remember the scene in which they killed an innocent woman -in which I cried- but it was full of truth. If many men flirted with a woman who kept ignoring them, they would dare to kill her. Tough times, also when that french woman died, with the large fortune -I am not really sure about her nationality- that would be the exact reaction of the residents. At least the film has and beautiful scenes, like the last one, it was my favourite one. Lastly, I was really surprised to find out that "Zorba" isn't Greek. I just searched it on the internet because a lot of people talked about its performance, I am amazed. It's accent and the way he behaves tricked me. All these years I believed on a lie ~ incredible performance!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
07/16/22
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie has not held up well. Although Anthony Quinn's performance is excellent, the level of cruelty and misogyny in the film are horrifying! The villagers in the town the main characters move to are portrayed as amoral primitives and there's a very disturbing murder. What little I'd heard about the movie made it sound like a somewhat light hearted film about a Greek man teaching a British man to be less uptight, but it's much darker than that.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I went on holiday in Crete in 2021 and decided to see Zorba the Greek
However, the movie has nothing to do with the Crete of today. There are no tourists in Mihalis Kakogiannis's adaptation of the novel with the same name, no beautiful landscape and almost no feeling of the dramatic, even stunning landscape of Crete.
In fact, the movie is about a wild, uncivilised, rural, backward Crete. Anthony Quinn is simply magnific and the film is worth watching only for his performance, which I dare to say it is one of the best I have ever seen in any movie ever. Everything is beautiful shot, the plot develops nicely, the actors and the action is vivid and convincing. The movie diverges from the book in one, perhaps essential, detail. One of the main characters, the one who comes to Crete to revive the lignite mine as a hero full of good intentions and care for the locals is not a young Greek intelectual but a British one. From the perspective of our time this is a twist that turns the movie from what could have been a commentary about modernisation, traditions and rural/urban gaps in Greece to a neo-colonial narative about a civilised Westerner wanting to and ultimately failing to modernise a backward place. The director, even if Greek himself, does not care to look closer and to understand or perhaps only to give the point of view of the locals about their traditional habits, religion, actions. The camera lens are in fact a pair of Western eyes looking at everything with curiosity, sometimes with repugnance, sometimes with patronising understanding. Women are there just for love affairs, household chores and stealing. Men are cruel, heavy drinkers, weak and lazy. Maybe they are, maybe they have always been like this. The problem is not the historical veridicity but the striking lack of interest in the local culture from a Greek director of a film ultimately about Crete.
The movie is well worth watching but not to understand or to accompany your holiday in Greece.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The movie has been panned by critic Wendy Michener, as it "leaves too much to be explained". Perhaps, like Zorba's "clever people", she "weighs too much". I have only glanced at a few lines of the book, and it seemed too slight to construct a great movie upon, despite the brilliance of script, performances, and the central idea of ZTG (not at all bohemian, even in 1964) that human life is also a struggle to force meaning upon it. I've seen play this live, 3 times, and neither the play or his personality seem to keep up with that one electric performance. However, I think I will permit this adaption to be great, if barely. As for his lineage, that would be 1/2 Irish (that's what I said), and a mother of Mexican/Native Indian composition. No wonder he was type cast to so many "ethnic" parts. For the flip failure of his career, I suggest The Shoes of the Fisherman; I preferred him saving a tentative English writer to the entire planet, as a highly implausible pope.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
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