Pantelis Voulgaris is a Greek director renowned for the aesthetic quality of his movies as well as his preoccupation with modern Greek history. It did not come to me as a surprise therefore, that I enjoyed the film so much. The historic facts were there, the story was good, the actors were well cast and played beautifully, photography was good as with all his films, but I really was pleasantly surprised by the details of the filming itself. This film stroke me as one that paid real attention to detail, very much unlike other Greek films. The sound was really good (an issue with older modern Greek movies) and all effects used were really well thought out and balanced.
The story itself is moving, (maybe less so if you are not Greek). Communists imprisoned by the fascist friendly Metaxas regime, are not released when the war breaks to fight at the front, and instead, the German occupation finds them behind bars. The killing of a Nazi general by the resistance, causes a huge retaliation of the Nazis against the Greeks.
The Last Note
2017
Drama / War

The Last Note
2017
Drama / War
Synopsis
Four years after the successful and award-winning "Little England", Pantelis Voulgaris, director of the great and beloved films "Brides", "With Heart and Soul", "The Striker with No 9", "Stone Years" returns to the big screen with "The Last Note". In his new film, Voulgaris deals with one of the most important chapters of modern Greek history: the execution of 200 Greek resistance fighters by the German occupiers on May 1st, 1944 in Kaisariani, as reprisal for the Greek Resistance ambush against Nazis. Pantelis Voulgaris, with Ioanna Karystiani ("Little England", "Brides") who wrote together the script, will take us to the concentration camp of Chaidari, the period before Labor Day (1st May), and will introduce us to the people behind the tragic events. Leading character of the story is the 34-year-old Napoleon Soukatzidis, a Cretan with Asia Minor origin, who fought and was held in prisons and exiles since 1936.
Uploaded By: FREEMAN
Downloaded 38,582 times
April 04, 2019 at 05:54 PM
Director
Cast
Movie Reviews
A very moving film and an excellent production
The best war movie/drama in recent years!
When I saw the trailer for this film I was amazed by the high production value and the serious tone the film had ,with out been overly dramatic nor it had ludicrous scenes.
To the film itself ,it focuses on the execution of the inmates in in Kaisariani, as reprisal for the Greek Resistance ambush against Nazis. In the film we see how violent and predatory were the occupation forces as well as the willingness of all of the population either to fight back or support those who fight back. And when it comes to the execution it is portrait in a very mature and emotional manner.
As for historical accuracy, top notch truly the director and his team put a lot of effort in order to be faithful to the events and shows what the people of my country, Greece were willing to do for resisting to the foreign occupiers. As for the main point of view character Napoleon Soukatzidis, I love that he is neither a bad-ass nor a leading figure, he is just a significant yet small part of that story and I appreciated that interpretation.
Over all this film is the best that the Greek cinema has made in ages and I hope that this just the first of many to come.
First 2/3 great, last third obvious & dragged out
I really liked the first part of this film. It informed me about the occupation of Greece during WWII, something I knew little about prior to this. I especially enjoyed the way the German captors were portrayed. Some scenes were a little unnerving and I only assume they were based on historical sources. The reason I didn't give this film a higher rating? The last part of it was too melodramatic and drawn out for too long. It was just too obvious what was going to happen by that point. Other than shortening I'm not sure how else the ending could be improved & can't give a better score as it is.