An allegorical reading of the film Landscape in the mist, directed by Theo Angelopoulos

Abstract

The text analyzes the film Landscape in the mist (1988), by Theo Angelopoulos. The reading is divided into four moments: the first is devoted to the reading of the Odyssey, more specifically, of the “Telemachy”, as the first four books of this epic supposedly inaugurate a locus in Western literature: the journey in search of the father which echoes strongly in Angelopoulos’ filmic narrative. Then, we visit the concepts of Vaterland (fatherland) and Heimat (homeland) in order to explore the relationship between genealogical origin and the identity of Telemachus. In the third moment, we develop the concept of allegory, according to Walter Benjamin (2013), which supports our interpretation. Finally, we propose our reading of the film, supported by accurate comments by David Bordwell (2008) and Andrew Horton (1997). With this, we aim to show how the identity of the modern man linked to the fatherland or the homeland is no longer so clear to philosophy, as it was in the Odyssey, and neither to the “post-war cinema”, in the words of Bordwell (2008), both intend the relationship between genealogical origin, roots, homeland and identity.

Keywords

• angelopoulos
• paisagem na neblina
• odisseia
• alegoria.