Theodoros Angelopoulos

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – Athina, epistrofi stin Akropoli AKA Athens, Return to the Acropolis (1983)

    1981-1990DocumentaryGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

    Synopsis
    Angelopoulos was born and grew up in Athens. The Athens that starts from the Acropolis and extends to the small Byzantine churches of the old quarter, the remains of the neo-classical homes, the quiet squares, the apartment buildings, the narrow streets, the vehicles, the pedestrians. It is not a city but the stage on which a drama is being played out, as, of course, is the rest of Greece in the films of Angelopoulos. More specifically, a tragedy made up of treasured memories, stories and personal experience. The poetry of George Seferis, a favourite of the director, supplies the words while the paintings of Tsarouchis provide the images.Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – Trilogia II: I skoni tou hronou AKA The dust of time (2008) (HD)

    2001-2010DramaGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

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    Synopsis (Written by Theo Angelopoulos):
    A, an American film director of Greek ancestry, is making a film that tells his story and the story of his parents. It is a tale that unfolds in Italy, Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada and the USA. The main character is Eleni, who is claimed and claims the absoluteness of love. At the same time the film is a long journey into the vast history and the events of the last fifty years that left their mark on the 20th century. The characters in the film move as though in a dream. The dust of time confuses memories. A searches for them and experiences them in the present. Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – O Melissokomos AKA The Beekeeper (1986)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

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    Acquarello wrote:
    The Beekeeper opens to a static shot of an extended dinner table festively covered with a white tablecloth and ornamented with rose petals that is sitting empty at the center of the courtyard in the rain, as the sound of Spyros’ (Marcello Mastroianni) affectionate voice is heard recounting to his young daughter the natural selection process of bees that culminates in the majestic queen’s dance. The guests have retreated indoors for what is revealed to be the wedding reception of Spyros’ daughter – now a grown woman – in the family home. From the onset, the middle-aged schoolteacher’s profound disconnection is immediately palpable as he shares a prolonged, uncomfortable silence with his wife (Jenny Roussea) while picking up shards of broken glass from an overturned tray of wine glasses. Dispirited by his inevitable separation from his beloved daughter, Spyros separates from his wife and embarks on his forefathers’ traditional vocation of apiculture. Traveling southward with his bees on an instinctual springtime migration, Spyros encounters a young hitchhiker (Nadia Mourouzi) who, abandoned on a rural truck stop, insinuates herself on the resigned and acquiescent Spyros through intermittent points on his indeterminate journey. Estranged from an unfamiliar modern world where his generation has become a historically incidental relic, Spyros attempts to reconnect with humanity through the promiscuous and rootless young woman and, in the process, retreats further into the solitude of his dying avocation.Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – O thiasos aka The Traveling Players (1975)

    1971-1980DramaEpicGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

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    Here is an excellent overview of the film that provides a ton of background information that greatly helps in understanding this outstanding film.

    from Jump Cut, no. 10-11, 1976, pp. 5-6
    copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1976, 2004

    “In THIASSOS even though we refer to the past, we are talking about the present. The approach is not mythical but dialectical. This comes through in the structure of the film where often two historical times are dialectically juxtaposed in the same shot creating associations leading directly to historical conclusions… Those links do not level the events but bypass the notions of past/present and instead provide a linear developmental interpretation which exists only in the present.”
    — Theodoros AngelopoulosRead More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – Trilogia I: To Livadi pou dakryzei AKA Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (2004)

    2001-2010DramaEpicGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

    This is the first film of Theo Angelopoulos’ trilogy. The story starts in 1919 with some greek refugees from Odessa arriving somewhere near Thessaloniki. Among these people are two small kids, Alexis and Eleni. Eleni is an orphan and she is also taken care by Alexis’ family. The refugees build a small village somewhere near a river and we watch as the kids grow up and fall in love. But difficult times of dictatorship and war are coming…Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – Mia aioniotita kai mia mera AKA Eternity and a Day (1998)

    1991-2000DramaGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

    Quote:
    “Eternity and a Day” won an overdue Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes International Film Festival for the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, whose style of drifting metaphysical reverie is at its most accessible here. All things being relative, this is a dreamy, lulling film but also a more concise and straightforward one than the magnificently grandiose “Ulysses’s Gaze”, the Angelopoulos opus that directly preceded it. “Eternity and a Day” is simpler, the haunting poetic valedictory of an artist whose memory leads him across the landscape of his life during his last day on earth.Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – To vlemma tou Odyssea Aka Ulysses’ Gaze (1995)

    Arthouse1991-2000EpicGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

    Quote:
    Starring Harvey Keitel, just a year after his turn in the American masterpiece Pulp Fiction and two years after the controversial indie double whammy of Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs, Ulysses’ Gaze would win multiple awards the world over, including the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival (the film would not take the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest honor, prompting Angelopoulos to shockingly declare, “If this is what you have to give me, I have nothing to say.”).Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – Topio stin omichli aka Landscape in the Mist (1988)

    Drama1981-1990ArthouseGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

    Synopsis:
    The movie portrays the journey of two children in search of their father, whom they believe lives in Germany. On the way they meet many people, including a troupe of actors (a reference to Angelopoulos’ early movie The Travelling Players), and encounter dangers.Read More »

  • Theodoros Angelopoulos – O megalexandros AKA Alexander the Great (1980)

    Drama1971-1980EpicGreeceTheodoros Angelopoulos

    Synopsis
    Lead by Alexandros (Omero Antonuti), a group of thieves escape from prison. They take several aristocrats hostage, and, together with a few anarchists, they go to Alexandros’ village, where an administrative system of common ownership and equality among all the inhabitants has been instituted. They ask the aristocrats to return the land to the villagers, but their demands are not met because soldiers have surrounded the village. The anarchists try to leave but are killed on the way. Alexandros executes the hostages; the soldiers kill his comrades, and the villagers murder him. The only survivor is a little boy named Alexandros (Ilias Zafeiropoulos), who escapes and goes to Athens.Read More »

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