''Voyage to Cythera'' ( el, Ταξίδι στα Κύθηρα, translit. ''Taxidi sta Kythira'') is a 1984 Greek film directed by

Theodoros Angelopoulos Theodoros "Theo" Angelopoulos (; ; 27 April 1935 – 24 January 2012) was a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. He dominated the Greek art film industry from 1975 on, and Angelopoulos was one of the most influential and widely re ...

. It was entered into the

1984 Cannes Film Festival The 37th Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 23 May 1984. The Palme d'Or went to the '' Paris, Texas'' by Wim Wenders. The festival opened with '' Fort Saganne'', directed by Alain Corneau and closed with '' The Bounty'', directed by Roger ...

, where it won the

FIPRESCI Prize The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

and the award for Best Screenplay.

Plot

A communist returns to Greece after decades of exile in the Soviet Union. He is disappointed by what he finds.

Cast

* Manos Katrakis as Spyros *

Mary Chronopoulou Mary Chronopoulou ( el, Μαίρη Χρονοπούλου; 16 July 1933) is a Greek actress. She was one of the most popular actresses of the 1960s. She starred in many films, 16 of which were produced by Finos Film. She is one of the main protago ...

as Voula *

Dionysis Papagiannopoulos Dionysis Papagiannopoulos ( el, Διονύσης Παπαγιαννόπουλος; 12 July 1912 – 17 April 1984) was a Greek actor. He was born in Diakopto in the northeastern part of Achaea in 1912. He studied at the Drama School of the Natio ...

as Antonis * Dora Volanaki as Katerina *

Giulio Brogi Giulio Brogi (3 May 1935 – 19 February 2019)

as Alexandros * Giorgos Nezos as Panagiotis *

Athinodoros Prousalis Athinodoros Prousalis or Proussalis ( el, Αθηνόδωρος Προύσαλης; 15 December 1926 – 5 June 2012) was a Greek film and television actor. He was born in İstanbul, Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Repub ...

as chief of police * Michael Giannatos as police officer

Reception

Richard Bernstein of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' was unfavorable toward the work; he stated that there were "extraordinary scenes", but argued that "when the end comes, the viewer is left ..with the vague unsettled feeling that, aside from gaining the knowledge that exile is emptiness, two and a half hours in the presence of much onscreen joylessness has produced little satisfaction." Bernstein contended that ''Voyage to Cythera'' is "like a slightly too long allegory whose moral you just don't get." A reviewer for ''Time Out'' was mixed, writing, "The first half of the film ..is suffused with that peculiar melancholy which Angelopoulos has made entirely his own. One begins to lose the thread in the second half, however, when the old man and his wife are cast adrift on a symbolic voyage to Cythera, birthplace of Aphrodite". Other critics have praised the film. In the fifth edition of ''

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film ''The New Biographical Dictionary of Film'' is a reference book written by film critic David Thomson, originally published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in 1975 under the title ''A Biographical Dictionary of Cinema.'' Organized by personality, ...

'', David Thomson wrote that the "beauty of the film has seldom been equaled". In an article for the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...

, Christina Newland included ''Voyage to Cythera'' in her list of 10 great Greek films. Matthew Thrift also lauded the trilogy of which the film is a part, writing that all three films "see Angelopoulos at the height of his creative powers". In the book ''A History of Greek Cinema'', Vrasidas Karalis referred to ''Voyage to Cythera'' as one of the best films of its decade.

References

External links

* 1984 drama films 1984 films Films directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos Films scored by Eleni Karaindrou 1980s Greek-language films Films set in Greece Films with screenplays by Tonino Guerra Greek drama films {{Greece-film-stub