I was 15 when I saw this movie, and it really got to me. I remember well the paranoid fears it set into my teenager mind, as making me aware of the annihilation danger we were all living in, if only... Definitely, it became one of THOSE "warning-movies" that prevented the disaster to happen (same as Stanley Kramer's "On the Beach", for instance) - what we could call: "An anti-fulfilling prophecy" (by contrast with the "self-fulfilling" ones).
By all means, it's a very subtle and intelligent piece of work. The harsh humor, with black and erotic overtones, the pointed satire, the sharp accents of social criticism, all contribute to build up that kind of deliberately deceit that eventually becomes all the more efficient. The perverse fun builds up with a well mastered precision, until the final frenzy that precedes the radioactive poisoning - a well deserved bow for Cacoyannis, in this sense, as he proved to coordinate such an exact vision, different of the wider and deeper poetry or grandeur of his other movies. Now, decades later, I can still feel how the demented laugher froze in my throat, the moment when that haunting final shot suggested total extermination. "Attention, please! Attention, please! Attention, please!..." - for years, I've repeated it in my mind, never having enough of that unique, and so strong, warning; again, it's kindred with Kramer's "There is still time, brother!"
By all means, it's a very subtle and intelligent piece of work. The harsh humor, with black and erotic overtones, the pointed satire, the sharp accents of social criticism, all contribute to build up that kind of deliberately deceit that eventually becomes all the more efficient. The perverse fun builds up with a well mastered precision, until the final frenzy that precedes the radioactive poisoning - a well deserved bow for Cacoyannis, in this sense, as he proved to coordinate such an exact vision, different of the wider and deeper poetry or grandeur of his other movies. Now, decades later, I can still feel how the demented laugher froze in my throat, the moment when that haunting final shot suggested total extermination. "Attention, please! Attention, please! Attention, please!..." - for years, I've repeated it in my mind, never having enough of that unique, and so strong, warning; again, it's kindred with Kramer's "There is still time, brother!"