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Voyage to Cythera
(Taxidi sta Kythira)

Screening on Film
Directed by Theo Angelopoulos.
With Giulio Brogi, Manos Katrakis, Mairi Hronopoulou.
Greece, 1984, 35mm, color, 133 min.
Greek with English subtitles.
Print source: Greek Film Centre

A successful middle-aged filmmaker looks on as his father returns from exile in the Soviet Union to find his village being expropriated not by communists but by capitalists who want to turn it into a ski resort for Western European tourists. Angelopoulos’ first film set entirely in the present is startling and energizing, even as past conflicts haunt the story. Predating and predicting Antonioni’s Identification of a Woman and Tarkovsky’s Sacrifice, Voyage to Cythera confronts the future refugee status of all those unable or unwilling to participate in tourist economies. Looking more contemporary than even the director’s last works, the film seems like a product of our time more than the 1980s. Angelopoulos’ use of fog, mist, rain and the sea reaches a new level here, underscoring the indifference of a society turning away from injustice, distracted by personal problems and entertainment.

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