I think being a director is a very difficult thing to try to do. Being a great director is something only a few can achieve. Theo Angelopoulos is one of those few. He makes difficult, intricate films.
Voyage to Cythera is a film about an old man returning home. It's a film about love. It's a film about encounters. It's a film about politics. It's a film about many things. That's why it's not easily comprehended.
What makes it a director's film? The use of very long shots, neverending scenes beautifully staged. You wonder how you can think of such a way of presenting a subject and then actually turning it into a film.
When you think of Greece you might expect blue skies and sunny beaches... well there's nothing of that in Angelopoulos cinema. Grey overcast days are Greece too. I like that.
«In
VOYAGE TO CYTHERA the voyage is really a reworking of
the myth of the Return of Odysseus according to a myth
which preceded Homer. Similar to Dante's version, there
is a pre-Homeric version that Odysseus set sail again
after reaching Ithaca. So the film becomes more a leaving
than a homecoming. I have a soft spot for the ancient
writings. There really is nothing new. We are all just
revising and reconsidering ideas that the ancients first
treated.»
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