The Travelling Players

Director: Theo Angelopoulos

1975 / 230min / DCP

The history of Greece between 1939 and 1952—the devastation of the left during World War II, the liberation by the British and the Anglo-American meddling in Greek affairs that followed, the emergence of General Alexander Papagos as a dominant political force following the Civil War—is traversed backwards, forwards, and sideways by a troupe of perpetually touring tragedians in this breathtaking, intricately choreographed film that, released shortly after the end of the repressive right-wing Regime of Colonels military junta in 1974, did much to establish Angelopoulos’s international reputation, drawing inspiration from both American musicals and the myth of the House of Atreus.