The Theo Angelopoulos Collection Vol 1 (4 Discs) [DVD] [1970]

This is a wonderful collection of early works by one of the masters of the cinema. Angelopolous made films like no one else's, creating his own language of image and
time. His films, especially these early works can be challenging, and even frustrating at times. They take work, and without a knowledge of Greek history (especially
in the 20th century) they can be down right baffling at moments.

Also, his first films, for me, are less than perfect -- an artist finding his voice, sometimes awkwardly (although there are many who see the first films as outright
masterpieces). I do know his films always grow with re-watching. There are always new details, new connections, new understandings.

It's very sad that this great artist's works are not more widely known and appreciated. Hats off to Artificial Eye for making these films easily available.

I can't think of any other modern film-maker who so deeply and rigorously explored his country's 20th century history, psychology, national myths, politics,
and societal strengths and weaknesses in film after film as Angelopoulos does in his early films. Later, he turns to more personal, humanistic film-making,
just as brilliant in its own way But his multiple films deeply and creatively exploring how his nation came to it's current state represent something
special, even to someone like myself who didn't grow up in that particular culture.

The DVD quality in the set is quite high. There is some controversy as to whether 'The Hunters' is the "right" cut, as it appears to be about 20 minutes shorter than
another extant version (However, that version seems to be impossible to find with English subtitles). On the other hand, Angelopoulos himself is supposed to
have approved this version. We may never know the whole story, but I will say this is the only version I've seen, and it blew me away.

Some comments on the 4 films:

Reconstruction (1970) A beautifully photographed, elegiac meditation on truth, love, change and loss.
While far from my favorite film by Angelopoulos, it is exquisitely shot in gorgeous, stark black and white, and very impressive as a first feature. As mentioned, I
get more out of it on each viewing.

This exploration of the nature of truth revolving around the murder of a husband by his wife and her lover in a tiny Greek hamlet, and the subsequent investigation
by the police and the press is emotionally reserved to the point of disconnection at times. And Angelopoulos' first experiments with time-shifting - which I love in
his later woks - on first viewing left me confused and frustrated more than enlightened. But once I was prepared for its fragmented approach, I found its
sometime confusing density powerful.

I also realized how much more than just a noir murder tale this is. It's the story of the death of a way of life as well, as the rural towns of Greece were abandoned
for money and hope in the big cities and abroad.

Days of '36 (1972) A step towards Angelopoulos' greatness
An even more difficult and abstract film than Angelopoulos' debut, his 2nd feature deals with a man arrested after a political leader is assassinated. The man seems
to have been part of the assassination plot, but it is left somewhat ambiguous what his role was. In jail he takes prisoner of an official who may or may not also be
his cohort. While the hostage situation is at the very center of the plot, we are never in the room with the two men, and never know quite what is or isn't going on
between them.

Tied directly to specific events in Greek history of 1936, when Greece fell into dictatorship (I suspect only a deeper knowledge of that history would have let me
experience all the film's many levels), and made during the second period of dictatorship 30+ years later (and so Angelopoulos had to be ginger in how blatant
anti-government his stance was) on the broader scope the film is about the desperate stupidity of power, seen here via the various odd ways in which those in
power try to deal with the hostage crisis; rendering them at first impotent, and then violent.

The pace is very slow. This is a comparatively short film by the director's standards, but actually felt longer than some of his epics. Without an emotional center
or any character(s) we can identify with, using all non-actors as cast, many of whom give fairly stiff performances, the film teeters on the edge between
fascinatingly enigmatic and simply frustrating and confusing. It's all a metaphor for a society going wrong, for the rise of fascism, but it's convolutions, distant
performances, and (for Angelopoulos) naturalistic visual style never really allows us inside as his later, greater, more poetic, theatrical and emotional
works do.

But it is beautifully made, shot from always interesting angles. Angelopoulos had yet to fully embrace his trademark super-long, flowing elaborate takes, (often
multi-minute mini-films within a film) but there is a step in that direction from "Reconstruction".

"Days of 36" is a transitional film. Angelopoulos starts to find the voice that would lead to his masterpieces, starting with his next film, "The Traveling Players",
where his intellectual rigor would be balanced by an incredibly cinematic vision, and the beginnings of his expressions of a sense of loss and pain, so one is
drawn deeply in, even as you occasionally get lost on a literal level.

Not a great film, but an intellectually interesting one, and required viewing for anyone interested in the arc of the work of this great master of images. And I
suspect, as with all this film-makers' dense films, I will only get more from it on repeated viewings.

The Traveling Players (1975) Angelopoulos' first masterpiece
Perhaps a flawed masterpiece, but for me his first great film. As with all of his films, it's challenging, and if you want to be cranky you can pick at it. But why?

First and foremost, 'The Traveling Players' is a technical achievement; almost 4 hours long and only about 80 cuts in the whole film! (or 132 depending on the
source. I will admit I didn't sit there and count!) 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 a strength and its weakness. I was always interested, sometimes horrified, but only occasionally
touched emotionally. Also, some of the good/bad of the politics felt simplistic and polemic.

That said, despite its length, I very much look forward to re-watching it 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. I will say, to make a deliberately paced, intellectual, 4 hour borderline
experimental film and never be boring is in itself an amazing accomplishment!

Comparing the Artificial Eye version to the highly praised Greek New Star release (which Angelopoulos personally supervised), I found they were nearly
identical in image quality. Perhaps the New Star had a tiny edge, to my taste in the color arena. The New Star is just slightly cooler in tone, faces are less
ruddy. But the image is so similar I imagine they likely come from the same master.

There's a bigger difference in sound. The New Star has a 5.1 dolby re-mix which I found slightly cleaner and more appealing than the Artificial Eye's simple
dolby stereo. However, one could make a good argument that the theatrical release wasn't mixed in 5.1, so the stereo mix is more true to the original. In any
case, the good news is that this new version lives up to the out-of-print Greek release that was under Angelopolous' direct control.

The Hunters (1977) My favorite film of the set
A powerful, surreal examination of politics, time, guilt and memories. An amazing follow up and companion piece to the epic 4 hour "The Traveling Players",
Angelopolous further refines his complex visual style, jumping backwards and forwards in time, often, remarkably all in the same shot. (There are several
very long takes here that are simply astounding, tracking us right out of the 1970s into the 1960s and then the 1940s and back again without a cut).

A group of hunters in 1977 find a communist revolutionary, dressed in 1940s clothing, freshly shot to death in the snow. But how can this be? All the
Communists were executed or exiled back in 1949.

The subsequent surreal exploration of the past and present - of each character and of Greece itself - is a challenging statement on guilt, denial, moral confusion
and self- deception. This may be the best of all Angelopoulos' films at making multiple time periods dance together in the same scenes, often in the same
shot, sometimes in the same frame (!). He uses cinema in a unique way to examine how the past shapes the present, and how we in the present then
re-shape the past in our memories. I found this the most emotional and moving of the 4 films in the set. And while it is generally serious, the film
also has a bleak, rueful, darkly playful sense of humor. Read more ›

I first encountered Theodoros Angelopoulos ("Theo" from now on, to save my fingers the trouble) as a young, wide-eyed cinephile about 8 years ago with the film Ulysses' Gaze. I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning. It was one of the few truly unique and powerful cinematic experiences of my life to that point as I'd never seen a film with an aesthetic style quite like it. Since then I've seen many films, and encountered many filmmakers, that offered similar experiences, but Gaze stayed with me. I was quite upset to learn that, at that time, it was the only film of his available on DVD. A few years later Landscape in the Mist was also released, and it proved even better. Since then I've lamented the scarce availability of his work, especially the early films that were hailed as masterpieces.

I eventually even bought the New Star versions of his films, but that set was incomplete. But I could finally see The Travelling Players, which proved to be the masterpiece it had been hyped as. Well imagine my surprise when I found out Artificial Eye was releasing Theo' entire filmography! I immediately pre-ordered Volume I and II, and I'll be pre-ordering Volume III soon. Volume I just arrived a few days ago and I immediately put in Reconstruction and found myself, yet again, in complete awe of Theo' mastery of cinematic images. Since then I've also watched the other three films in this set, including rewatching The Travelling Players, and found Days of '36 and The Hunters to be excellent--if lesser--films in Theo' cinema.

But one thing should be stressed about this set and Theo in general: He is a very unique director with a very unique style and voice. He utilizes long takes that frequently stretch on uninterrupted for minutes at a time, even when very little is (superficially) happening on screen. Much like Hou Hsiao-hsien--my favorite director of the last 30 years--he eschews classical exposition, which means that he doesn't take any time setting up the characters and conflict. Instead, he just thrusts you inside the world of his films and expects you to keep up. This can be especially difficult when one is ignorant of recent Greek history as well as classical Greek literature and mythology. The Travelling Players, for example, utilizes Aeschylus' famous Orestia trilogy and adapts it to the sorrows of Greece from 1939-1952.

Theo' cinema is a cinema for aesthetes. The types of people that can stare in wonder at hours at a Monet for the sheer beauty, or get lost in the sensuousness of a Keats poem. People call his films "poetic," but what that means is that he has a mastery over cinematography and mise-en-scene, from the lighting to the compositions to the orchestration ("blocking" in theater terms) of people within the frame. He utilizes silence and space and time to allow one to sink into the atmosphere of his films like one might sink into a hot bath while listening to Mozart. With Theo it's a meditative, feeling thing, more than an intellectual understanding or an edge-of-your-seat thrill-a-minute.

The real question to a newcomer to Theo is: where to start? These three-volumed box sets are compiled chronologically, and going through any artist's oeuvre chronologically always has certain advantages of watching them develop and refine their artistry. Volume I has perhaps Theo' magnum opus, his defining masterpiece, in The Travelling Players, but it's is also perhaps his densest, most challenging film because of the multitude of levels it works on (metafictionally, historically, comedically, mythologically, dramatically, etc.) and because of its 3hr. & 45min. runtime. However, the first film, Reconstruction, is a less painful introductory film. Shot in black & white, it's Theo's only film in the style and it's one of his simplest, most direct, yet most elegantly beautiful. Days of '36 is a political hostage drama that becomes, by the end, almost an absurdist satire. Here one can see Theo developing his magisterial long-take style that he'd perfect in Players. The Hunters closes this set, but, much like Players, it's a difficult film to follow if one is ignorant of 20th Century Greek History, and I find it perhaps the least substantial film here (though still quite strong).

I've only seen Landscape in the Mist and Voyage to Cythera from Volume II, and only Ulysses' Gaze and Eternity and a Day from Volume III, but the others will be new discoveries for me as well. If the other films hold what I've seen of Theo's later style, then Volume II and III may encapsulate his move towards a more metaphysical, mystical cinema reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky. He's still interested in culture and history in a film like Landscape and Gaze, but in these films it remains more in the background. These may be better introductions to newcomers as they don't place as much demand on the viewer's knowledge of socio-historical and cultural context, but I can't speak for the five films I haven't seen. Perhaps an alternate course for those in the US (or for those with region-free DVD players) would be to buy one of The New Yorker releases to "give him a try" before investing in these box sets.

The final matter for interest to potential buyers of these sets is image and sound quality. Well, I can't provide any figures like DVDBeaver can (those interested can check their site periodically), but to my eyes, via my Oppo BDP-83 and Mitsubishi WD-73737 TV, they look spectacular. Maybe because they were a sight for sore and yearning eyes to begin with. But the prints look clean and clear and I don't see any artifacts or nasty pixelixation that often happens with low bit-rate transfers.

Despite the fact that, by now, I've seen almost 5000 films and have even taken up reviewing films for the website Cinelogue.com, Angelopoulos remains one of the few directors from whom each film is an immersive experience. For that alone every cinephile deserved to see him. He won't appeal to every taste, but if you're like me then he may become one of your favorite cinematic artists.

Until very recently The Travelling Players was one of the few masterpieces of world cinema which could not be obtained on DVD in an English-subtitled version. That has now been rectified, and is included here as one of Angelopoulos' first 4 features, all from the 1970s.
The first two films are both based on actual incidents. The black-and-white Reconstruction relates to a crime of passion in a small village in 1970, and already we see some of Angelopoulos' style, with 360-degree pans, groups of people dwarfed by landscape, virtually no close-ups, and jumping back and forth in time. The title relates to the fact that the crime is being reconstructed by the police to ascertain who in fact did the actual killing (of a husband returning from a spell of work in Germany). As with all the director's films we have to work at it, although here we don't need a knowledge of Greek history. An impressive debut.
Days of '36 is about a traumatic event in 1936 when a prisoner, claiming innocence of an assassination, takes hostage an MP who visits him in his cell. The film follows the bungling attempts of the authorities to resolve the crisis. Again there are very long takes, little dialogue for much of the film, sweeping camera movements, etc.
The Travelling Players, nearly 4 hours long, is the highlight of the collection, and the only one of these films I have seen before, though not for a long time. To fully appreciate it you need a knowledge of Greek history between 1939-52, and of ancient Greek myths, and I do not yet have this. Even without that, you can really wallow in the astonishing cinematography in this story of a group of actors, travelling from village to village, over a 13-year period, performing just one play whose performances (at least the ones we see) are always interrupted by the political events which punctuate the period, including of course World War II. The director reaches his full maturity here, with his trademark rival political processions, movements in time within the same shot, several scenes by the sea (including one involving a group of British soldiers), a New Year's Eve party with rival factions singing their songs, scenes in the snowy mountains, all with shots lasting several minutes with constantly-moving camera. I intend to watch this film several times, hopefully having mugged up on the Greek myths and history involved.
The Hunters was a revelation to me. A group of hunters, in the late 1970s, come across a recently-shot man in the uniform of a Communist fighter from the civil war of 30 years earlier. This leads to a long inquest, in which each of the hunters is held to account for his past political involvement. The film's highlight comes in the last half-hour, when at a New Year's Eve party (again!), after some general singing, a woman enacts her admiration for the King to the extent of feigning giving herself to him in an act of love. This is followed, in a highly surreal episode worthy of Bunuel, by the apparent coming-to-life of the dead Communist and the arrival of his former comrades, who proceed to shoot the Rightists who are holding the party. All this, lasting many minutes, in a single take, though I did detect a possible cut, in the style of Hitchcock's Rope, where the jacket of a passing character fills the screen. This scene alone matches anything in The Travelling Players.
Having watched these four films, the directors they most remind me of are both Hungarian: Miklos Jancso, whose compositions of armies of characters moving as in a distant ballet are truly stunning, and, even more, Bela Tarr, with ultra-long takes of characters trudging their way into the distance. If you like this style of cinema, then Angelopoulos is certainly for you. But I would strongly recommend learning some Greek history first.