God Loves Caviar

It is real easy to critic this film. But it is not exactly fair. Because it gives a large story in decent manner. For Catherine Deneuve as Catherine the Great and for the hard work of Sebastian Koch. For noble idea and for the interesting manner to reflect it. Sure, it is not great, remarkable or memorable. But, in each scene you feel the taste of salted sea and, in few, you imagine the taste of caviar. So, a pure Greek film, a pure Greek story.

Granted the move wasn't the best I have ever seen, and could have been better. If you take everything into consideration such as the limited budget and the complexity of the topic I think they did a good job of telling a very interesting story. Being Greek myself I had a very general idea of the topic prior to watching this film. It did a decent job of giving us the basics in the limited time available. You should watch this move and then do some research on the history to get a better understanding of what place.

I think a number of people are missing the moral of the story that is that your home is always where your heart is.

I don't wont to be spoiler but watch it regardless of its short coming and I am sure you will enjoy it.

I have to confess that I am no expert on the history of either Greek, Russia or the Ottoman Empire, so I actually watched this in the hope that I might learn a little something about any or all of these subjects. Varvakis seemed an interesting subject for a bio pic. First, it's hard to really classify what he was exactly. A sailor? A pirate? A merchant? A revolutionary? Or a somewhat chaotic combination thereof? Chaotic! That's actually a word I would apply to this movie. The flow was chaotic. The story was interesting - I never had the temptation to turn it off - but it was also very hard to follow. Varvakis leaves Greece while it's under Ottoman rule and ends up as a hero in Russia after fighting for the Russians against Turkey. He becomes friends with Catherine the Great and because of her generosity he ends up as a caviar magnate, but finds himself driven to return to Greece after the Ottomans are overthrown, and in reality he did in fact became a benefactor to the new Greek government - giving much of his wealth for the cause of education. But from what little I've been able to glean of Varvakis' life there are also liberties taken with his story. That's dramatic licence and it's fine - but if you're not really familiar with the subject matter it's pretty hard to sort out fact from fiction. There are also what seem to be some bizarre theological reflections scattered throughout, and I never quite grasped what point was being made from them, except that they seemed to suggest that Varvakis was a fatalist of some sort - God has a plan and we follow it, whatever may happen.

The performances here were very good. Sebastian Koch was superb as Varvakis. Aside from him, the actors I was most familiar with were Catherine Deneuve as Catherine the Great and John Cleese as a British official who was confused about what was happening with Varvakis and sought an explanation - although I'm not convinced of the reality of Cleese's character. That narrative (along with a story being told to children by an old friend of Varvakis) were the means of driving the film forward. There was a whole plethora of Greek actors and actresses with whom I'm not personally familiar although they're presumably well known to Greek audiences.

So, the movie was interesting - but in the end frustrating, because it didn't really give me a solid grasp of exactly what was happening from a historical perspective. So - not a bad movie, just a chaotic and frustrating one. (4/10)

A movie very close to Varvakis life. A movie that shows that Greeks are exactly like that , we always let our Βenefactors like Varvakis to die & always act like traitors for the interest of the wealthy countries(as long as our pocket is full with money). Something that still happens today. I believe that this is what Smaragdis is trying to tell us. But unfortunately we cannot handle the truth. If Smaragdis had more funds he could make it even better. Some of the special effects (like the destruction of the Turkish fleet) could have been better. But these cost. The change between languages might sound a little confusing but it was a necessity . A big bravo for Mr Smaragdis, i enjoyed the complex of this movie much more than El-Greco.

I will agree with tinakewy's review. The screenplay was confusing a lot. I liked the actors a lot, especially the Greeks who were very serious with their roles. They didn't look like the usual Greek actors. I also really liked the mother of Varvakis when she came down to earth to talk with him. Her expressions and her eyes were very beautiful.

I would like to mention some technical issues that I noticed. Is it possible to have Out of Focus shots? There were lots of shots like this and there weren't a screenplay reason. It was a technical mistake. Even if the budget was low, controlling Focus is a basic thing. In some cases the video editing was a bit disturbing, too. You could tell the cuts. Also, the dubbing was noticeable in some cases.

I would really like to watch a great story, a great film as a Greek. But it wasn't that great.

Thank you.