A Greek born in Ethiopia, Papatakis was an avant-garde producer (Genet's Une Chant d'Amour) and director (Les Abysses) in France before making films in Greece. Thanos and Despina is the polar opposite of the classic shepherd's idyll. "A rich, almost madly intense film" (Village Voice), it tells of two young people who are turned into outlaw lovers, hounded by the injustices of arranged marriage and dowry which are exacerbated by the poverty of a decimated village population. Greek tragedy updated, it is cruel theater enacted in the open elements. In 1970, Papatakis wrote of this film, suppressed by the Dictatorship: "I wanted to show that a man who is dying of hunger and fear can become bestial, fawning, and self-debasing. I have tried to describe this world of the humiliated...without sentimental humanitarianism...; to be revolted by the beauty of the landscape in order to draw from behind it the color of oppression and the tragic presence of Man in the lap of all this beauty." (Grove Press)