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!
Review of The Travelling Players
