Consisting of a series of critical essays and Andrew Horton’s interview on the distinctive imagery, cultural influences, and the filmmaker’s own personal, spiritual, and intellectual preoccupations, The Last Modernist: The Films of Theo Angelopoulos presents a diverse, insightful, and comprehensive examination into the dynamic framework that innately characterizes and forms the indefinable substance of Theo […]
Tag: Greek Cinema
The Suspended Step of the Stork, 1991
The first film of what would be loosely considered Theo Angelopoulos’ Trilogy of Borders, The Suspended Step of the Stork opens to the tumultuous and disconnected stationary long shot of a helicopter hovering over an indistinguishable, formless, dark mass floating lifelessly in an undulating open sea that has been encircled by a small fleet of […]
Days of ’36, 1972
Going back to Metaxas, the two parties [right-wing and center] had enthroned him despite his being a real fascist, following in the tracks of earlier previous dictators. He did not make any effort to dissimulate his positions, and he had no scruples declaring that under his guidance, Greece would never face the risk of another […]
Eternity and a Day, 1998
Alexandre (Bruno Ganz) has reluctantly dismissed his devoted housekeeper, Urania (Helene Gerasimidou), explaining that he is about to embark on a “long journey” from which he does not intend to return. It is a vague euphemism that allows him to say good-bye to his loved ones without the sentimentality of revelation. The reality is that […]
Landscape in the Mist, 1988
“In the beginning was the darkness. And then there was light…” Every evening, Voula (Tania Palaiologou) begins to tell her younger brother, Alexander (Michalis Zeke), the same bedtime tale – the story of creation – and is invariably interrupted by the approach of their distant mother as she momentary peers through the door to ensure […]
The Beekeeper, 1986
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 […]