Theo Angelopoulos is a strange, solitary and uniquely modern filmmaker. Originally part of the so-called "Paris group", which was at the core of reaction in the sixties against traditional cinema, he soon moved away on his own to trace a brilliant course across the cinematic firmament, carving for himself an important niche among the great directors of the past century.
This film director, whose Greekness has at times been doubted, has a deep and mystic relation with Greece. In spite of having been born and raised in Athens, he travelled a great deal looking for that other Greece of ruined and abandoned villages in the mountains, dragging out of the ruins of past memories, lives buried in neglect. He searched the Greek countryside with passion, to give a clear and perceptive image of Greek reality.
Greece, the inexhaustible homeland, is not only a geographical site for Angelopoulos. It is the incarnation of his spiritual anxieties and searchings and, by extension, his artistic expression. The Greece of today and the Greece of yesterday melt into a constant present in the same way that various cultural elements find a form of expression through his pioneering techniques. With his first effort, The Broadcast, he rediscovered in the lively atmosphere of Athens the "cinema-direct" he had learnt so well in Paris, while with Reconstitution, he moved on to his own film language, taking a dive into realism. He rebuilt, with a sense of freedom and originality, the reality of continental Greece, so much so that this film became a landmark in the history of Greek cinema and the beginning of its rebirth.

Contunue ...