Yes, this is what this film has been to me... an experience to remember. It was a sad period for my family, we had lost my cousin, very young, few months before then, and my aunt, her mother, was seriously ill, she actually died few months later (she was only 54)... So, there we all were, Christmas time, a silent mourning instead of Christmas carols and cheerful family unifications... And it was that very Christmas back in 1981 that Greek television showed this film which has haunted my dreams ever since... I don't really know what impression it would really make to me today, but I can not forget the feelings it woke up to me that day... The beyond any description tender and emotional story of the forever "lost" son, who "returns" to help his nephew cope with the treatment he gets from his grandfather and make his desperate father's dream come true,especially the scene of the son's phantom entering the church where everybody is waiting in great anxiety about what might had happened to the delayed in the snowstorm ones, and finally sings Christmas carols, reunited –at last- with his devastated father, just made me cry for long bitter hours right after. Actually, it still makes me cry, every time i recall it,though 30 years have passed since then. I know, one could say that it really didn't make any sense, and yes, the script was really balancing between realism and a fairytale... Still, i have never ever watched a film scratching so persistently my deeper feelings of sorrow and desperation,for i knew and know how hard it is to deal with loss, and it's only in films that hope is never lost...
