StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Jack Thomas Remarkable film where the camera does almost all of the work. Poignant ending as what must have seemed a symbol of hope now looks like a commentary on a Europe about to revert to tribalism and cold, cruel borders. The central plot about the disappeared politician doesn't seem central or integrated to the rest of the film: Moreau and Mastroianni are almost wasted, despite their strong, understated performances. The film moves because of its uncanny sense of atmosphere: bleak, impoverished life on the edge which might be that of refugees anywhere today. Music used very sparingly and powerfully, especially the amateurish renderings of Let It Be and Silent Night. Elsewhere, the sounds of the river and the wind recall moments in Antonioni. A film which may be more powerful now than when it was conceived.

a-tsitsos Our house is your house. Our house ... We passed the borders and we are still here. But how many borders must we pass to go to our home?This particular phrase from the unforgettable Theo Angelopoulo's film sums up the whole meaning of the film and the Trilogy of borders.Alexandros a TV reporter armed with the energy of the youth seeks a missing politician in a border town.The town is full of people from many ethnicities among them there is the politician(Marcelo Mastoioanni).His character a talented writer and politician disappears mysteriously and leaves everything behind to seek the very place which will make him happy,he seeks a home.The film title is a reference on the fatal step that people may take to cross the borders literally and not,the thoughts in that hour and danger of doing the step or fending off from it.Mastoioanni's character for another time in the end of the film takes the step of the stork and goes in another journey crossing borders once more.One of the best movies of Theo Angelopoulos.Unlikely from the most of his films,here the dialog serves the plot smoothly.The actors marry words with emotions.The beautiful landscape photography makes the movie even more beautiful.Although as all Angelopoulos movies the action is reduced.The mainstream viewer might get bored as it is a cult film with deep emotional scenes.Humanism dominates as people are the center of the films's axis.People have to overcome all the borders in their way even if they are guarded from soldiers.The movie with a simple plot delivers deep messages who change everyones way of thinking.All in all one of the greatest Greek films of the century.Highlight of the film: The Suspended Step of the Stork on the board line of Evros and the odd wedding across the river.

Mouzafphaerre HB A most recommendable masterpiece, not only for the underlying themes of the story but also for the unmatchably brilliant and ingenious picture work of Angelopoulos, not to mention the acting of giants, Mastroianni and Moreau, and the remarkable character play by Ilias Logothethis. Gregory Karr's performance may seem overshadowed by his "tough" partners' at first stance but in fact he perfectly plays his character, which is revealed in his very last scene with the girl (Khrysikou) and the man (Mastroianni), albeit hinted beforehand. (Hence the spoiler.)Get your expectations straight! It's an "art movie" in whatever meaning that phrase has to offer and requires attention. Not for spending free time, but for watching an artwork with the necessary concentration as in reading a book or attending a concert. Due to the overall photographic style, large screen viewing is recommended.Dialogues are used sparingly. But the film includes -in addition to the standard Greek and English speaking- fragments spoken in Albanian, Kurdish and Turkish, which will be attractive for those who are charmed by the beauty in hearing various languages.

david melville Having only ever seen one Angelopoulos film before - The Travelling Players, which thrilled me about as much as paint drying on a wall - I was unprepared for the revelation that is The Suspended Step of the Stork. Shot over a decade ago, this long metaphysical tale of desperate refugees and disenchanted politicians has become more contemporary with each intervening year. As if a lone Greek film-maker had somehow prophesied the horrors of Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq - and the creeping paralysis that has overtaken Western democracy.It begins in a refugee camp on the Greek-Albanian border, where a TV journalist spots an elderly man (Marcello Mastroianni) and decides he is a leading politician who went missing years before. Tracing the man's 'widow' (Jeanne Moreau) the reporter gropes his way towards the film's central dilemma. What could make a progressive intellectual lose all faith in humanity, to the extent that he gives up not only his political career but also his very identity?This sounds like dry stuff indeed, and so it might be without the alchemical power of Angelopoulous's camera. There are sequences here that beg for inclusion in an anthology of all-time cinema greats. The tracking-shot along a disused train, each carriage inhabited by a penniless refugee family. The wedding across the river, with bride and groom stranded on opposite sides by the arbitrary idiocy of national borders, which veers perilously close to kitsch but never succumbs.Moreau is magnificent, Mastroianni his genial hangdog self, but neither actor could ever mistake this film for a star vehicle. If there is a star here, it's the soul of humanity itself. A soul neither living nor dead, but held in suspended animation.