My first thought when I started thinking about The Trojan Women (1971, directed by Mihalis Kakogiannis) was that I would use the line "Euripides? I rippa dose" as a title. All hail Chico Marx and all, but it doesn't really fit, especially considering how utterly bleak both the play and this movie version actually are. The Greeks could ladle on the misery. I thought about writing about this as a variant of film noir--certainly many of the characters are engaged in film noir's sexual obsessions and downward spiral--but I think that more properly applies to Electra, which Kakogiannis filmed ten years prior to this film. THIS film, on the other hand, has interesting circumstances.
It was made in the late sixties/early seventies, when national cinemas of all kinds were in a state of upheaval. Nationalities were in a state of upheaval, as well, and the strong anti-war theme of The Trojan Women is very much of its time. In its formal qualities, it is the product of a decade of New Waves. The jump-cut is one of its most effective cinematic tools. It's also the work of an exile. Kakogiannis made the film in Spain; his native Greece was under an authoritarian thumb at the time. The international nature of the production gives Kakogiannis a once in a lifetime cast. All of this seeps into the warp and weave of the film.
The story is bleak, and it's the story that echoes down the millennia. Everything else is set dressing. In the aftermath of the fall of Troy, the women of Troy wait in the ruins to see how the victorious Greeks will dispose of them. It focuses on four women, mainly: Hecuba, the queen of the city state; Andromache, the widow of Hector, the great Trojan hero; Cassandra, the mad prophetess who has been raped by the Greek hero Ajax; and Helen, the woman whose face allegedly launched a thousand ships. Each gets their turn to wail their lamentations to the desolate hills around the smoking wreck of their city.