Le Voyage des comédiens

O Thiasos is one of those cerebral and omphaloskeptic movies that just do not happen anymore, shamelessly demanding from the viewer to attune to its eccentric pace. Space and time become pawns in the director's hands, who in effect accomplishes their operatic tranquility in contrast to the static directorial style. In rejecting all conventions of academic narrativity it sustains its formulaic enigma throughout its considerable length, persistently (and obsessively) questioning the freedom of man in a world domineered by irreversible occurrences. Boosted equally by grandeur, mystifying symbolism and pictorial lyricism the film comes to its redeeming conclusion. Enchanting, liberating, revolutionary, focused and precise. Both coldly objective and passionately subjective. A rare masterpiece.

"The Travelling Players", one of the early films of Theo Angelopoulos, shows the vast difference between the talented rising director of 1975 that had something to say, and of the bourgeois famous director of 1998 ("Eternity And A Day") that won the Cannes award but had nothing left to say.

A sprawling epic running at around 4 hours, the film follows a group of touring actors performing a theatrical play across Greece between 1939 and 1952. The focus is on the troubled modern history of Greece during the period (a fascist dictatorship, resistance against the Italians, German occupation, civil war), seen through a series of warped desolate sequences drenched in languor, and also an apotheosis of traditional folklore, music, theater, rural and urban landscapes. Most of these scenes exhibit a rare poetical sensibility, while a few are a bit clumsy, but still interesting.

Couple that with the drama that unfolds within the group of players, and you've got a true masterpiece. Basically what we see is a loose adaptation of Aeschylus' ancient tragedy "Oresteia" (the father Agamemnon, the adulterous mother Clytamnestra, her lover Aegisthus, the avenging daughter Elektra, the avenging son Orestes etc). In the end, the group of actors stands severely rearranged through a painful and dividing historical period, shadows of themselves in a shadow of a country. The film ends as a perfect circle just the way it began, a metaphor for life itself.

This was a long Angelopoulos war movie...

Necessary to underline the long battle of the country to preserve its roots in a time of transition and also to show its slow resolve. In its first half the identity of the country stays in its actors that, during a war, are still trying to entertain with subversive messages but also make a living. They are the resistance, keeping the past alive through the folklore plays, keeping the culture alive in these times filled with turmoil.

Actors are like soldiers in the first half and are fighting the nazis with folklore ideology and metaphors. When one is captured or killed the ones that remain have to fight even harder, but still smartly, low-key. In the second half we have the same but the actors on the other side have changed, with different ideologies but who also want one thing - to eradicate the culture that was there originally and replace it by force with a foreign one. There were two forces who fought for the soul of Greece, the communists (Russia) and the imperialists (UK). All the while, its people, being split, are trying to keep the soul alive. Fundamentals of a war, after all.

All of these big-picture events have a small-picture effect on its citizens, the theatre troupe, in this case, where the changing of generations and mentality takes place...also by force.

It's a long one, one that has to interest you to keep you engaged because Theo's style are these sweeping shots, long takes, silent scenes where nothing much is happening but volumes are written about the meaning.

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.

We watch movies to forget the true banality of life. Movies are packed with witty, non-stop dialogue, head-spinning action which takes place in a short period of time, and, of course, beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous women. We are so conditioned by contemporary movies, we forget or want to forget ordinarily life.

The Traveling Players by Angelopoulos has none of this. The dialogue is ordinary, spoken by ordinary people, by ordinary men and women. When they speak it is not rapid-fire, non-stop delivery, but ordinary speech most times separated by long periods of silence.

The beauty of The Traveling Players - or any film by Angelopoulos - the ordinary is beautiful. The sweeping, long scenes in this movie are stunning. We quickly identify with one or more of the traveling players. In the dialogue we can hear words spoken by a close friend or acquaintance. When the film ends nearly four hours later, you will want to see more.

This movie should not be missed.