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the audience applauded

Such a frustrating disappointment

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The Travelling Players is possibly the greatest movie in the history of Greek cinema. It is directed by the world-renowned Greek director Theo Angelopoulos and it presents the life in Greece from 1939 to 1952 through a family of travelling provincial players. It explores the political history of Greece during a very dramatic period, that includes dictatorship, the WWII outbreak, the Italian invasion and the subsequent German occupation and it continues with the liberation of the country and the very bloody Civil War. The Travelling Players was a very controversial movie. The film was to participate officially in the Cannes Film Festival, but the conservative Greek government, sought (and failed) to prevent this to happen, because the film tells the modern Greek history through a left- Marxist perspective.Angelopoulos proves that he's a master filmmaker on every level. From direction and writing to every technical aspect. Cinematography in particular.Also, the music by Loukianos Kilaidonis is fantastic and elevates the film in a different level.The Travelling Players is a masterpiece that everyone should watch.

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!

A flawed masterpiece from Angelopoulos, the first of a number of great films of his you can pick at if you want. First and foremost, it is a technical achievement; almost 4 hours and only about 80 cuts! It goes against all we've gotten used to in film story-telling, and does it brilliantly.The story follows a troupe of actors back and forth through the years 1939 to 1952. They're thrown about by the violent, sometimes absurd tides of Greek history, with victory over the Nazi's giving way to the rise of local fascists at home. The film is very Brechtian and distanced in style. We hardly get to know the characters at all, despite the running time. It's much more interested in the great tides of politics and time than individuals - which is both its strength and its weakness. I was always interested, sometimes horrified, but rarely touched emotionally. Also, some of the good/bad of the politics felt simplistic. That said, despite its length, I will re-watch it. I suspect I'll appreciate the amazing scope of it's vision and the bravery of it's style even more without expecting to get caught up in the people in a conventional way.If you have the chance, get ahold of the 'New Star' DVD, which was only in release a short time. The transfer was supervised and approved by Angelopoulos, and certainly looks wildly better than the commonly found VHS tape.

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.