One of the best comments about the human society and its madness for fame ever made. A pathetic and frightened, peaceful man because of his similar face with a famous and wanted criminal, "the dragon", gives up his normal but misery life in order to become at last a famous person. He becomes the leader of a criminal group (that they think him as "the dragon") in a great and ambitious operation. He also falls in love with a young and beautiful singer of the bar that is the center of this criminal group; but unfortunatelly she cannot understand the tragic emotional situation of this man. But after a while he is identified not to be "the dragon" by the members of this group and one of them in his anger, murders him. The scene of his death, with Dinos Iliopoulos (he plays this person) walking in the cold of Athens, bleeding and finally fall dead next to the rollway lines is one of the most sentimental scenes i have ever seen. The film shows how a person in order to escape from his miserable way of life and its daily awful routine he prefers to be thought as a criminal in order to be important for once in his life. It also shows the full of poverty and sadness small neighbours of a big city (Athens) and the misery that rounds every person living in a city like this. It shows the way from a poor and anxious life to a life full of deadly illussions that they finally lead to death. One of the best european films of the 1950 decade.
Review of The Ogre of Athens
The Ogre of Athens
(1956)
"Better to be "the dragon" than to be unknown".
5 October 2003
Warning: Spoilers