Voyage to Cythera

Voyage to Cythera (Greek: Ταξίδι στα Κύθηρα, translit. Taxidi sta Kythira) is a 1984 Greek film directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos. It was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize and the award for Best Screenplay.[2]

For the painting by Antoine Watteau sometimes called "Voyage to Cythera", see Embarkation to Cythera.

Voyage to Cythera[1]
Directed byTheodoros Angelopoulos
Written byTheodoros Angelopoulos
Tonino Guerra
Thanassis Valtinos
Produced byYorgos Samiotis
StarringManos Katrakis
CinematographyYorgos Arvanitis
Edited byYorgos Triandafyllou
Music byEleni Karaindrou
Release date
21 April 1984 (Greece)
Running time
137 minutes
CountryGreece
LanguageGreek

Plot

A communist returns to Greece after decades of exile in the Soviet Union. He is disappointed by what he finds.

Cast

Reception

Richard Bernstein of The New York Times was unfavorable toward the work; he stated that there were "extraordinary scenes", but argued that "when the end comes, the viewer is left [...] with the vague unsettled feeling that, aside from gaining the knowledge that exile is emptiness, two and a half hours in the presence of much onscreen joylessness has produced little satisfaction." Bernstein contended that Voyage to Cythera is "like a slightly too long allegory whose moral you just don't get."[3] A reviewer for Time Out was mixed, writing, "The first half of the film [...] is suffused with that peculiar melancholy which Angelopoulos has made entirely his own. One begins to lose the thread in the second half, however, when the old man and his wife are cast adrift on a symbolic voyage to Cythera, birthplace of Aphrodite".[4]

Other critics have praised the film. In the fifth edition of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson wrote that the "beauty of the film has seldom been equaled".[5] In an article for the British Film Institute, Christina Newland included Voyage to Cythera in her list of 10 great Greek films.[6] Matthew Thrift also lauded the trilogy of which the film is a part, writing that all three films "see Angelopoulos at the height of his creative powers".[7] In the book A History of Greek Cinema, Vrasidas Karalis referred to Voyage to Cythera as one of the best films of its decade.[8]

References
  1. Koutsourakis, Angelos; Steven, Mark, eds. (2015). The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos. Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
  2. "Festival de Cannes: Voyage to Cythera". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
  3. "A Greek Exile Returns Amid Existential Anguish". www.nytimes.com. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  4. "Voyage to Cythera". Time Out London. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  5. Thomson, David (2014). The new biographical dictionary of film (Fifth ed.). New York. p. 26. ISBN 978-0375711848. OCLC 878554273.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. "10 great Greek films". British Film Institute. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  7. "10 great trilogies". British Film Institute. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  8. Vrasidas., Karalēs (2012). A history of Greek cinema. New York, NY: Continuum. p. 209. ISBN 9781441180902. OCLC 778454546.
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