Iphigenia (1977)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Iphigenia |
| Original title | Ιφιγένεια / Ifigeneia |
| Country of production | Greece |
| original language | Greek |
| Publishing year | 1977 |
| length | 129 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Cacoyannis |
| script | Michael Cacoyannis |
| production | Michael Cacoyannis |
| music | Mikis Theodorakis |
| camera | Giorgos Arvanitis |
| cut |
Takis Giannopoulos Michael Cacoyannis |
| occupation | |
| |
Iphigenie is a Greek drama film directed by Michael Cacoyannis from 1977. It is based on the play Iphigenie in Aulis by Euripides .
action
After the kidnapping of Helena , Helena's husband Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon want to set off for Troy with 1000 ships to bring Helena back and take revenge on the kidnappers. The allied armies, including those of Achilles , meet in Aulis , but cannot leave, as the calm that sets in makes the journey impossible. The soldiers begin to rebel, and the food supply in particular is causing strife. Agamemnon begins to kill animals from the farmers in the area and in the process kills the holy stag in the grove of Artemis in front of the seer Kalchas .
A short time later, Odysseus appears as a bearer of hope for the army, which now believes it is about to leave. A short time later, Odysseus and Agamemnon and Menelaus witnessed Kalchas' saying. The gods had informed him that Agamemnon had to make a sacrifice for his iniquity of killing the holy stag, whereupon the wind would rise. In Troy they will then be victorious. The required sacrifice shocked those present: Agamemnon is supposed to sacrifice his eldest daughter Iphigenia to the gods. Agamemnon refuses to make the sacrifice and instead wants to disband the army. In view of the euphoric crowd, however, he decides not to announce this decision on the evening of the oracle . He sends his daughter a letter in which he announces her marriage to Achilles and asks her to come to Aulis. Iphigenie's mother, Klytaimnestra , joins the trip against his will , since a wedding has to take place in the presence of the mother.
Agamemnon meanwhile cannot reconcile the sacrifice with his conscience and wants to have Iphigenia intercepted on the journey and send her back home. Menelaus intercepts the old servant who is to go to Iphigenia. He first wants to enforce the verdict of the gods, but in light of his brother's tears, he changes his mind. He now supports the dissolution of the army, but Agamemnon says that it is too late for that. When Agamemnon finally wants to ride off alone to get his daughter to return, a messenger already announces her arrival. Agamemnon decides to let fate decide.
He maintains the lie of the wedding in front of his wife, but is desperate when she insists on attending the wedding. Agamemnon is now hiding from his family and the army. The old servant lets Achilles come to Agamemnon's house, where he meets Clytaimnestra. She welcomes him as her future son-in-law, but he makes it clear that he has never asked for Iphigenie's hand. Clytaimnestra now learns from the servant of Agamemnon's true plan and is horrified. Achilles promises to save Iphigenia from death because Agamemnon used his name for his lies. Clytaimnestra should talk to her husband and bring him to his senses. Meanwhile, Iphigenia has overheard the conversation and flees to the woods of Aulis.
Agamemnon returns to his house, where he is confronted by Clytaimnestra. She makes it clear to him that he will become a murderer and that she will hate him forever for it. Odysseus, who wants to break Agamemnon's hesitation, informs the army that there will be a wind after the sacrifice of Iphigenies. The mass now demands sacrifice. The pressure on Agamemnon is increased when Odysseus comes to his house with the euphoric army. Achilles, who opposes the crowd and claims that Odysseus is lying and that Iphigenia is actually supposed to become his wife, is pelted with stones and chased away. Meanwhile, soldiers find Iphigenia and bring her to Agamemnon's house. Achilles promises to protect her, and Klytaimnestra also wants to defend her with her life. But Iphigenia has made up her mind. She knows that she is going to die and at least wants to do so with dignity. No blood shall flow for them; she sees herself as the first victim of the war , which will demand further victims - including among deserving men. Donned with her bridal veil, she goes to the sacrificial site. As she climbs the last steps on this path, the wind comes up. The soldiers storm the ships enthusiastically, while Agamemnon runs after his daughter, but stops in shock when entering the sacrificial site. The ships put to sea. Clytaimnestra leaves Aulis with her entourage, the camera pausing to stare at the army ships.
production
After Elektra (1962) and Die Troerinnen (1971), Iphigenie was Michael Cacoyannis' third Euripides film adaptation. The film was shot in the Agäis, Iphigenie actress Tatiana Papamoschou was twelve years old at the time. For the filming, Cacoyannis received support from the Greek Defense Minister Evangelos Averoff , who released over 2,000 soldiers as extras for the film. The costumes and the film structures were created by Dionysis Fotopoulos .
Iphigenie premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in May 1977 . The film opened in GDR cinemas on February 5, 1982.
criticism
The film-dienst called Iphigenie a "film remake in which convincing contemporary references to the tragedy content are mixed with pompous directorial ideas."
Cacoyannis "aims for large-scale mass scenes, with theatrical and sometimes even melodramatic expressions, to have great cinematic effectiveness, but he keeps the scenic events their ancient, archaic-mythical rigor and dignity," concluded the New Age . The New Germany saw Iphigenia as a "film against war, a film that shouts out against what war can squeeze out of people, against social constellations in which politics and morality come into insoluble conflict with one another." Cacoyannis and cameraman Arvanitis, who create "pictures of sometimes archaic force", even if "arrangement and photography occasionally seem to touch the expressions of the trivial genres - without ever becoming trivial themselves." The Berliner Zeitung found it "[a] Extremely exciting, in places breathtaking to see how Cacoyannis discovers attitudes and possibilities in the strict, strange, archaic myth, creates monumental images for individual texts by Euripides and then concentrates entirely on the dialogue between the characters involved, so captivates and has great cinematic effect reached."
Awards
Iphigenia ran in Cannes in 1977 in the competition for the Palme d'Or . At the Thessaloniki International Film Festival that same year, the film won the award in the category of Best Film and Best Actress (Tatiana Papamoschou). Iphigenie was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film in 1978 . At the Chicago International Film Festival in 1984, the film received a Gold Hugo nomination for Best Feature Film.
Web links
- Iphigenia in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vincent Canby: "Iphigenia". Too Unspartan as a Film . nytimes.com, Nov. 21, 1977.
- ↑ Katerina Zacharia (Ed.): Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity . Ashgate, 2008, p. 332.
- ^ Iphigenia. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ HU: Archaic-mythical rigor and dignity . In: Neue Zeit , February 11, 1982, p. 4.
- ^ Henryk Goldberg: The power of tragedy translated into film images . In: Neues Deutschland , February 26, 1982, p. 4.
- ^ Detlef Friedrich: Euripides filmed . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 26, 1982, p. 7.