Landscape in the Mist

The man at the centre of this film does not exist. Voula is eleven and her brother Alexandros five, and they dream of reaching their father in Germany. There is no father; their mother invented him to keep them quiet. They set off without knowing that, and the whole film is a journey toward a man who was never there. Theo Angelopoulos works in long takes with a waiting camera. As the children cross Greece heading north, railway stations, the backs of lorries and abandoned beaches follow one another, and violence is part of the road; the film does not look away from it. Eleni Karaindrou wrote the score. It won the Silver Lion at Venice in 1988. The final scene closes on a single tree in the mist. The two children walk toward it and hold on to it. They appear to have crossed the border, but the film never confirms it. Who it is for: viewers who like slow, poetic and openly allegorical cinema, and loss described through geography. Who it is not for: impatient viewers. The takes are very long, there is little dialogue, and one scene in the middle contains severe sexual violence.