|  VOYAGE
TO CYTHERA
(Greece.
1983. 137 minutes. Colour)
Directed
by : Theo Angelopoulos
Screenplay by : Theo Angelopoulos with
Thanassis Valtinos and Tonino Guerra
Cinematography by : Giorgos Arvanitis
Production design by : Mikes Karapiperis
Music by : Eleni Karaindrou
Costumes by : Giorgos Ziakas
Make-up and wigs by : Giorgos Skendros
Sound by : Thanassis Arvanitis, Dinos
Kittou, Nikos Achladis
Sound mixing by : Thanassis Arvanitis
Edited by : Giorgos Triantafillou
Produced by : Girgos Samiotis
Executive producers : Giorgos Samiotis,
P. Xenakis, Phoebe Sravropoulou, V. Liciuressi
Production : Greek Film Centre, Z.D.F.,
Channel 4, R.A.I., Greek Television, Theo Angelopoulos
Productions
With : Manos Katrakis (Old man Spyros),
Giulio Brogi (Alexandros), Mary Chronopoulou (Voula),
Dionyssis Papayannopoulos (Antonis), Dora Volanaki (Katerina,
old woman - Spyros' wife), Athinodoros Proussalis (Police
captain), Michalis Yannatos (Coast guard officer), Vassilis
Tsaglos (president of the dock workers' union), Despina
Geroulanou (Alexandros' wife), Tassos Saridis (German
soldier).
Cythera, in Greek mythology, is the isle of dreams where
one can dedicate oneself to happiness (or the pursuit
thereof). In this quest within a quest, the tale of
the father's return is told as if from the point of
view of his son Telemachus and as if Telemachus were
a filmmaker, as well as a middle-aged man with a son
of his own. A film director, tired of the illusions
and fictions of his profession, searches for a story
of substance by attaching himself to an old man, a recently
returned political exile. The man, away in the Soviet
Union for 32 years and now stateless, finds himself
at the beginning of a journey, not the end, and Angelopoulos
evokes the past, present and future to bridge the gap
between reality and the imagination. VOYAGE TO CYTHERA
is about an old man - the country's leftist past - who
cannot become reconciled to his country's present or
perhaps it is Greece that is not ready to come to grips
with its past. In the end the old man is set adrift
on a raft headed away from Greece into international
waters, with no home to steer toward, joined by his
wife a latter-day Penelope who, despite the fact that
this man is more a stranger than a husband to her after
so many years, chooses to share the rest of her life
with him and in doing so accepts all of his past, his
sorrow, his politics and his failed dreams. It is a
journey to the dark side of Greek history where it crosses
paths with myth.
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