dbdumonteil
The title is one of the (slightly modified) commandments : "thou shalt honor thy mother and ....mother."From the start ,we know what we are going to deal with: the over possessive mom ,Oedipus complex, and ,a good way to combine pleasure with business, Greece,its blue sea,its blue sky ,and its wonderful landscapes .There is no doubt about it : the cast took advantage of it .Lauded far beyond its station by the "feel good" critics, the movie is little more than a rehash of the former parts of Melina Mercouri : anyway ,the four boys dance the sirtaki and sing (in Greek,much to their credit) "Les Enfants Du Pirée " aka "children of Piraeus " aka "never on Sunday" by Manos Hadjidakis .Nicole Garcia is an excellent actress as well as a talented director and perhaps she should have directed the movie herself and rewritten the screenplay: for the younger actors and actresses (mainly the English daughter-in-law 's singing exercises get on your nerves the third time)are left to their own devices ;even the marvelous granny Emmanuelle Riva does not know what to do with herself .At times,it looks as though all Brigitte Rouan's actors hog the stage ,and their lines are generally witless ;the funny moments are few and far between: the mayor has used the cultural funds to get a mains drainage ; the Virgin Mary procession ,led by a cross (orthodox) priest played by pop singer Demis Roussos , that meets the "Bacchanalia" and their giant phallus ;and finally the best moment : the spoof on Oedipus tragedy :but,it's too little too late ;and we are left dreaming of how great the movie could have been ,by focussing on this stage drama :rehearsals , performance , connection with real life ,Freud parody ,etc .It's not enough to include a surrealist Garcia on her flying chariot to suggest ,say, Medea.Greece ,its mythology , the sons-mother relationship ,all is only skimmed over ;a nice vacation indeed!It's true that fried squids are a gourmet dish in Homer's land.
