Josef Koudelka was commissioned to photograph the production of Ulysses’ Gaze by director Theo Angelopoulos in the Balkans. This catalogue, designed by Koudelka, was published to accompany exhibitions in Thessaloniki, Athens and London.
The book of Koudelka’s photographs is entitled Periplannissis: Following Ulysses’ Gaze. Periplanissis is the Greek word for wandering. In the book’s introduction, Alain Bergala, who was working at Magnum Photos at the time, writes of beginning to receive Koudelka’s images: “Slowly, as the days went by, some of us began to dream of a totally new, imaginary film based on those photos, an illusory elliptic, sublime film. This meant of course that when it was shown to us we were the worst viewers, the least receptive to the beautiful picture Angelopoulos had directed. No film, no matter how real and complete, can resist a phantom one put together dreamily out of a few mystical photographs, most of which did not have a direct bearing on the shooting.”
