Iphigenia

The Greek fleet is waiting at Aulis; there is no wind and the ships cannot sail for Troy. The seer produces an explanation: Agamemnon has offended the goddess and the wind will return only if his daughter Iphigenia is sacrificed. Agamemnon sends for her, giving as the reason that she is to be married to Achilles. Clytemnestra comes with her daughter and learns the truth. Michael Cacoyannis directs, from the play by Euripides. Tatiana Papamoschou plays Iphigenia, Irene Papas plays Clytemnestra and Kostas Kazakos plays Agamemnon. What interests the film is politics rather than the gods. The impatience of the army, the calculations of Odysseus and Agamemnon's fear of losing command decide the matter; the divine command stands in the narrative as a pretext. Cacoyannis had already filmed Electra and The Trojan Women; the three are known as his Euripides trilogy and Irene Papas is in all of them. It was shot on location in Greece; the camp, the shore and the rocks are not sets. The music is by Mikis Theodorakis. Tatiana Papamoschou was thirteen at the time and much of the emotional weight rests on her. It was nominated for the foreign language film Oscar in 1978. Who it is for: viewers who want Greek tragedy adapted and classical texts on screen. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the acting is close to the stage, and the weight of the text gets in front of the narrative in places.