Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

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

Jackson Booth-Millard I would not have known about this Greek film if it had not been featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was rated well by critics as well, so I hoped it was worth it, directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos (Landscape in the Mist). Basically a group/troupe of travelling players, i.e. stage performers, travel through Greece attempting to perform the popular erotic drama Golfo the Shepherdess. The film is a trawl through historical events between 1939 and 1952, as experienced by the travelling players, these events affect all villages they visit, hence the performance of the play is not always successful or completed. The historical events seen are the last year of the dictatorship of fascist prime minister Ioannis Metaxas, the war between Greece and the Italians, the occupation of the Nazis, the liberation, the civil war between left and right wingers and the intervention of Greek politics by the British and the Americans. The film is also seeing the lives of the characters themselves, with jealousy and betrayal more, this includes Aegisthus (Vangelis Kazan) is an informer and collaborator working with German occupiers, and Orestes (Petros Zarkadis) fighting with the leftists, avenges the death of his father by killing his mother and Aegisthus, he is arrested for guerrilla activities and executed in prison. Orestes's sister Elektra (Eva Kotamanidou) helps the leftists and aids her brother in his vengeance, after his death he continues the work of the troupe and her relationship with Pyladis (Kiriakos Katrivanos), Elektra's younger sister Chrysothemis (Maria Vassiliou) collaborates with the Germans, becomes a prostitute during the occupation, during the liberation sides with the British, and later marries an American. Orestes's close friend Pyladis is a communist exiled by the regime of Metamax, he joins the guerrillas and gets arrested and is exiled again, finally after being tortured he is forced to sign a denunciation of the left by the right wing and he is released from prison a few years later. Also starring Stratos Pachis as Agamemnon, Aliki Georgouli as Elektra's Mother, Stratos Pahis as Elektra's Father, Giannis Fyrios as Accordionist and Grigoris Evangelatos as Poet. To be honest, most of the description above is not written by me, it was for me a rather complicated film, I got the parts of the players trying to perform their play while history goes on in the background, and some of the character stories caught my attention a little, but there were loads of slow moments with no dialogue and not much action, critics are right when they said you need patience to watch this film, I don't think I had enough for it, especially it being almost four hours long, but it's not a bad epic political drama. Worth watching!

tintin-23 Angelopoulos began developing his theories about film making in 1962, while studying at the IDHEC in Paris. His quest for a genuinely national Greek cinema had been preceded by a similar movement among Greek musicians. This was partly in reaction to the growing American military and economic influence in the Mediterranean, and partly in reaction to the American support of the Greek junta. At that time, Hollywood dominated the world's screens, and for Angelopoulos, the natural battlefield was the cinema. His style eschews mainstream conventions of the time, resulting in his films being perceived as nearly the antithesis of Hollywood's films. Hollywood's rapid cuts and furious pacing he opposes through long takes, leisurely pacing, and composed tableaux. Angelopoulos uses long shots, and de-emphasizes individual performances, unlike Hollywood's close-ups and star system. Hollywood tries to emotionally seduce its audience, while Angelopoulos looks for means to occasionally distance his viewers from their emotional responses. Of course, just reversing Hollywood's techniques cannot in itself constitute a style, but it seemed at the time to have been a good place to start to define a national cinema.The camera of Georges Arvantis has been crucial in all of Angelopoulos' films, and "The Travelling Players" is no exception. Two-thirds of the film consists of exterior shots in subtle, subdued colors, recorded in the drab light of wintry dawns and dusks. The film is shot almost entirely in long shots that are also long takes, many lasting several minutes, and some as long as seven to nine minutes. The retelling of these thirteen years of history, covered in 240 minutes, required only eighty scenes or takes. On several occasions, during some long takes, there is a shift in time, which is meant to underscore the political linkage between the pre- and post-war military regimes. At other times, objects or characters come into the camera's restricted field of view , somewhat poorly framed, and even unpredictably at times, while outside sounds, near or far away, remind the viewer of the existence of an outside, unseen world. Sometimes, the camera searches a rural landscape, a courtyard, a back alley, in a 360-degree pan. The viewer is invited to share in the search, in what to look for, and for how long, and maybe return to the original place for a second look. Many of these long takes with little action in them often follow moments of intense emotion. They become, in fact, resting points where the viewer can reflect on the dramatic event he or she has just witnessed. There are three particular long takes, in full shots, with the camera immobile, during which three of the main characters, Agamemnon, Electra, and Pylades, each in turn recount key moments in the history of their country. During these monologues, the actors speak monotonously, without inflection or emotion. But other than these three instances when history becomes intimate through the testimonials of the three characters, history is observed from a distance, without fanfare, without insightful dialogue.There are no stars in this film. Although Orestes is certainly an important character, and the second half of the film is Electra's story even more than Orestes', the true protagonist is the group of players itself. As time passes, the group membership changes, but the group itself survives as a living character.This film is composed as a mosaic of scenes rather than an ordered narrative as Angelopoulos switches back and forth in time and from one character to another. Using these distancing devices is one of the ways by which Angelopoulos forces the audience to reflect on the broader themes, rather than just the individual participants and moments."The Travelling Players" is a meditation on history and myth. In this film, Angelopoulos examines the political power elite, monarchist-fascist, supported by foreign powers that had obstructed Greek democracy since at least 1936. This is a continuation of his investigation, which began with "Days of '36" (1972), and would continue with "Megalexandros" (1979). Angelopoulos' views contradict the "official" Greek history and constitute a fundamental revision of history in which the Left, in general, and the Communist Party of Greece in particular, are given their proper places, and are not depicted as the moral threat to Greek democracy. Angelopoulos' main arguments for this revision have to do with the nature of the Greek resistance to the German occupation and the civil war which followed.In this representation, Greece is no longer the Greece of the travel brochures, with its eternal sunshine and beautiful islands. Instead of the "travel poster" Greece, Arvantis' camera shows us a land with its scruffy homes, rundown "kafeneons," crumbling stone walls, and rutted streets. Greece is no longer the cradle of western democracy, but a place where tyranny is deeply-rooted, and its enchanted islands are places of detention, torture and executions. Greece is a land possessed by Hunger and Death.On a mythological level, the characters play out a modern version of the myth of the House of Atreus. As it is in Aeschylus' Agamemnon, betrayal is a major theme of the film, betrayal on a personal level by some members of the troupe. But on the contemporary historical level, the betrayal is that of Greece, from outside by other nations, but even more tragically, from within itself. Through this parallel Angelopoulos unambiguously suggests the repetitive cyclical nature of human existence.On the other hand, since Aeschylus's Oresteia also relates the birth of Athenian democracy, it is from this lesson that Angelopoulos, continuing the lesson of Aeschylus, thematically links individual tragedy to the national struggle for freedom."The Travelling Players" is a powerful historical epic, if not an unusual one, as far as American audiences' expectations are concerned. I would certainly discourage seeing this as a first exposure to Angelopoulos' films. For those who appreciate Angelopoulos' work, it is one of his finest works, worthy of several viewings.

alice liddell Theo Angelopoulos is one of the acknowledged masters of cinema, and yet he remains little seen: an acquired taste. It is easy to see why. Unlike other greats, like, say, Renoir and Mizoguchi, who, though firmly rooted in their own national cultures, present characters and narratives generally recognisable, Angelopoulos is forbiddingly national (as opposed to nationalistic: there are echoes of everyone from Fellini to Bunuel to Ozu in this film) in his outlook. Watching this film without any knowledge of Greek history, literature or mythology can be very frustrating - every time you see a character, event, composition, you know it alludes to something else, but because you don't know what, you feel like you're missing the point of the film. La Regle Du Jeu is enriched by a deep knowledge of French History, but can be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in cinema, stories or humanity. Angelopoulos' films don't have this surface level of entertainment - everything is symbolic and loaded.Does this mean that the only enjoyment of the film can be a cold admiration of form? No. Even if we don't understand the specifics, we can recognise the horrors of a nation beset by continual tyranny. The metaphor of a theatrical troupe, travelling throughout Greece, is subtly used. Rather than actors, or commentators on history, as we'd expect, they're always continually observing, on the margins. Modern Greece is a labyrinth - the film is dense with streets, corridors, doors, offering no escape, just an endless loop, leading to dead ends of time and space. Fascism has exploded these notions in its denying of history and its attempt to homogenise space, and the same frame can hold events decades apart.The travelling players are exiles in their own country. Like Bunuel's discreet diners, they can never finish their play: when they do it results in death, stagnation, and a break up of the troupe. They're bewildered like Pirandello's Six Characters, not necessarily searching for an author (they have one - Greek history), but trying to escape him. The great irony is that they cannot remain untainted by the times - one's son is a partisan, another is an informer.Angelopoulos' use of the medium really does inspire awe. His slow, long takes, long-shot compositions and camera movements, open the mind to new conceptions of time and space, forbidden by the ideologies ruling Greece. The film is full of remarkable, shocking set-pieces; austere quiet bursting into Fellini-esque disruption; revels and song turning into murder and horror; editing so spare that each cut becomes a jolt. Songs, birds and water are the driving metaphors here: how fascism appropriates our minds, imagination and especially our voice; how our reaching for freedom is always curtailed; how history is a never-changing trampling on the vulnerable.Angelopoulos is a modernist - he still believes in the power of witness, and the ability to assert truth, which is refreshing in these times where irony is confused with indifference. Compare THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS with Nabokov's Bend Sinister, similarly concerned with artists in a totalitarian system. Angelopoulos' systematic attempt to shore fragments against the ruins is denied by Nabokov, who bleakly suggests through fragmentation, distortion and disrupton that there is no shoring, that the only plausible rebellion is madness. Angelopoulos' view is, in many ways, more reassuring.The film is not without its problems - a raped woman stands up to recite the rape of Greece in a queasy monologue; hateful royalists are coded homosexual to suggest sterility and death; there is, at times, a humourless self-righteousness and portentousness to the film that grates. But, before he slipped into the vague artiness of his later works, its astonishing to think that people could make films like this. In the way that you may not hold Finnegan's Wake or the Sistine Chapel to your heart, THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS is unloveable, but it's a rare experience in the cinema of the sublime. (And, believe me, once you've attuned yourself to Angelopoulos' rhythm, you won't want those four hours to end)

YP This is a landmark film, a must see for anyone that wishes to understand modern Greek history and politics. The plot is a loose retelling of the Oresteia cycle of tragedies by Aeschylus--the names of the characters (Orestes, Electra, Chrysothemis) are an obvious hint. Betrayal, revenge and redemption are only part of the story. It takes place in Greece between 1936 and 1952, years filled with fascist dictatorship, war, Axis occupation, civil war and repression. Greece's traumatic history is seen through the eyes of a traveling company of actors, who travel all around provincial towns to perform a single play: "Golfo", a pastoral tragedy told in folk-song-inspired rhyming couplets.This is not a movie for action-loving, short-attention-span viewers. Angelopoulos and his long-time collaborator, renowned cinematographer Arvanitis, have developed a very distinctive style, and "O Thiassos" is an uncompromising example. There are no close-ups, very little panning, some slow tracking; shots are long (both in point of view and time); almost every shot is filmed in overcast conditions; actors are dwarfed by their surroundings, which are all unglamorous, even depressing in their wartime run-down look. One could say that the purpose is to accentuate the tragic, the sense that the characters are cogs in the machine of history; but ancient tragedy did the same in big style, opulent costumes, and terrifying masks. Angelopoulos' politics induces him to focus on ordinary people in ordinary surroundings instead. The result is strangely, hauntingly lyrical to many; a real downer for some.The film came out in 1975, a year after the end of the dictatorial right-wing regime of the "colonels" (1967-74), and after decades of repression of communists and their sympathisers. Angelopoulos' point of view is sympathetic to the left/communist side. Under full democracy, it was finally allowed to be expressed. The film helped shape the political sensibilities of a whole generation of Greek baby boomers. Its sixteen-year trek (plod, some would say) through Greek history will probably bewilder non-Greek viewers, but it is a deeply affecting crash-course in what shaped contemporary Greece. It is also an impressive re-interpretation of tragedy, as original as any I have seen on film.