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From: darren pangbourne
Category: Theatre
Date: 27 November 2003
EST Misleadingly presented as one of the greatest achievements of modern film-making, the film that unleashed Theo Angelopoulos on an unsuspecting international audience will have you gnawing your leg off as it follows in sphincter-clenching detail a slightly irritating, hammy troupe of actors around a never-ending series of bomb-blighted small towns in Greece. Set against the traumatic backdrop of fascism, communism and civil war between the years1939 to 952, it never quite becomes apparent what this itinerant bunch hope to achieve in their persistent attempts to stage (to no obvious delight from audiences - either on screen or off) a version of a far from contemporary and best forgotten traditional folk drama 'Golfo the Shepherdess'. Minutes can pass like hours in the company of this director, as one indulgent, unmeasured travelling shot presents action of no consequence passing fully from one horizon to the other, only to be followed immediately by another, until eventually both characters and audience are enfolded suffocating, timeless, spaceless, hellish nightmare. Straight to videos.
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