Simply Perfect

Let's be realistic.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I consider Eternity and a Day the most successful film of Theo Angelopoulos. There has always been a poetic charm and an assertion for poetic communication in all Angelopoulos films. In Eternity and a Day it was most effectively represented. Though almost all of his films are very rich and filled with delightfully shaped and carried out scenes, but some of them I find far too long [ Ulysses' Gaze, The Suspended Step of the Stork] and some too sentimental [ The Weeping Meadow]. Eternity and a Day is very much free from these two traits.Angelopoulos described himself 'a war child'. Born and brought up in a difficult time in Greek history, wars and borders had always been a recurrent theme of his films. His earliest childhood memory was filled up with the sound of air raid sirens and the sight of German troops entering Athens, following the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940's. And like most Greek families of that time, they also had to face serious hardship and hunger. Angelopoulos was further traumatized by the events of 1944, when his father was arrested for not supporting the communist party at the outbreak of civil war, a period known as 'Red December' in Greek history.The events of the film Eternity and a day unfold in a single day, from morning to night, in the life of a famous Greek writer, Alexander. The day is also every now and then hindered by Alexander's past, his recollection of the events associated with his affectionate, dead wife. Alexander is suffering from a serious illness and is going to die very soon. He seems to have a very distant and uncomfortable relationship with his daughter and son in law, who have decided to sell their old house without even consulting him.Alexander encounters a small refugee boy on his way. First time in a traffic halt, he sees a group of boys hurriedly washing the stopped cars, and one of them approaches his. Soon some police men are seen who are running after these boys. Alexander tells the boy who was washing his car, to get inside. He leaves the boy in a different place; the boy goes out without a word. After a while he sees the boy again in some other part of the city, this time he is seen talking to two middle aged men, who forcefully pick him up and put him inside a van. Alexander decides to follow the van, which takes him to a barren part of the city, where these boys are being auctioned. Alexander somehow manages to take the boy out of that place. And after that what follows is almost a silent relationship that grows between the two. Alexander desperately tries to send the boy to his relatives and the boy tries to escape, probably he doesn't have a relative. He initially talks about his grandmother, but when they reach the Albanian border, and a guard is seen approaching, the boy confesses out of fear that previously he lied, he knows no one on the other side of the border. They run away from there. Alexander shouts in anguish that he can't leave him like this. And they both kind of seem helpless about it.Later, Alexander tells the Albanian orphan a story of a Greek poet of the past who lived his life in some other country and did not know his mother-tongue. But during the time of revolution, he felt an urge to come back to Greece and start writing poems in Greek, celebrating the revolution. But he didn't know Greek at all. So he started to study the language and gave money to anyone who gave him a new Greek word. But still his poetry remained incomplete, something that Alexander has been trying to finish for a long time. Stirred by the story, the Albanian boy goes out to search words at the dock. Interestingly Alexander picks up three words from him. One, 'korfulamu', a delicate word for the heart of a flower, a 'literal word of comfort' for his physical suffering, second, 'xenitis', a word that means the feeling of being a stranger everywhere, and the third, 'argathini', meaning very late at night – all of which echoes angelopoulos' poetic epitome, his sentiment of perpetual separation, his anguish for the death of a culture.Alexander doesn't only try to help out the kid, soon enough he indulges himself to communicate with the kid through words and poetry. And in the process, gets close to the kid and emotionally attached. It would be proper to say that Alexander finds comfort and a greater purpose through these exchanges. They seem to strike the same chord.As for the film, nothing really happens in the end. Their day comes to end after the bus journey. The boy leaves in a ship, and Alexander goes back to his memory of reconciliation or separation, or may be both at the same time.There are number of marvelously crafted scenes and moments that one can talk about, the scene in which Alexander's house maid's daughter is getting married out in the street, the scene in which the Albanian orphan burns the belongings of his long time friend Salim, the scene at the dock, at the Albanian border, at the traffic signal, and especially the bus journey at night.I wonder what the guy was doing with a huge red flag in the bus. Is that some kind of a political association? Well, he had a big flag in his hand no doubt, and that too was red. He even appeared at a crucial juncture of the film. Interestingly, moments after he gets up on the bus, he goes off to sleep and doesn't seem to wake up. Even the beautiful music played by the band inside the bus fails to wake him up.

Beautiful, poetical narration about the last day of a deadly sick man. Seldom one gets to see such unhurried film today. Eternal questions as life, death , love, are addressed. The film makes one's heart cry, and at the same time exulted with joy, from getting to know another big artist.

I guess my fault with this film was going into the cinema with such high expectations. Having read reviews and knowing the film was to be poetical, I was really looking forward to seeing it. It started with an extremely promising sequence with the children on the beach, but all was downhill from there. Suprisingly disappointing.

I can take Bruno Ganz any day! This one, it's more of a subdued role -- it reminds me of "Everybody's Fine", I can picture Marcello Mastroianni in the lead role of this story. Ganz appeared with a beard and delivered a restrained performance.Bruno Ganz exudes a certain strength and energy in the characters he played (Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire" 1988, Gillian Armstrong's "The Last Days of Chez Nous" 1992), with an outward strong physique. This role is sort of different: he is portraying a man beset with an illness and is unsettled about his upcoming hospitalization. He's also "tormented" by his own conscience of past episodes he had with his beloved wife -- her presence recurs in "haunting" flashbacks at this fragile juncture of his impending life's end.It's his journey and adventure with a little boy whom he by chance (or fate) met. The child became a link to the revived life force and energy in Alexander (Ganz' character). No more brushing off things, no more "doesn't have time" excuses; he is to re-prioritize the events and things in his life and to make a difference -- to do something meaningful for someone other than himself -- to this little boy (in turn to himself). The child's situation prompted him to take risks -- it's about time for him to do so. He's finally experiencing living! The little boy brought him back to life, living, and caring -- woke him up, freed his self-blaming mind and pulled him out of his doldrums. The realization that action speaks louder than words (literally so when he's a writer all his life) gave him fresh insights. The whole film is poetically put together. Director Angelopoulos has intermixed political, intellectual issues with aspects of life events and levels of emotions. Good performances from Ganz, the little boy, and Anna, the wife. The story has its episodic twists and turns, reality and flashbacks, chase scenes (yes, there is action) and "mindwalks", yet there is a certain steady pace and quietness to the film. Some might find it slow and will need patience to follow the film -- don't go if you're tired, you might miss the nuances of Angelopoulos' poetic storytelling and subtle image hints. It's a beautiful, philosophical, and mind-probing piece -- prompts us to reflect on how we lead our lives. Definitely not Hollywood fare. NFE. I find an affinity of story structure to the current box office hit, "The Sixth Sense", which also revolves around a man, a child, (and a woman): a man finding redemption through the time he spent with a little boy, and trying to resolve his neglectful past relationship with his wife. In this case, "The Sixth Sense" is more "real" while "Eternity and A Day" is more like a dream state. Also brings to mind is Francesco Rosi's "Christ Stopped at Eboli" 1979 (in Italian with Gian Maria Volonte, Irene Papas), another quiet philosophical journey of a man discovering life, living and himself among simple village folks.