Trilogia II: I skoni tou hronou

In 2012 the legendary Greek filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos was shooting a film called "The Other Sea" which was supposed to complete a trilogy which he started with "The Weeping Meadow" (2004) and "The Dust of Time" (2008). Unfortunately, on 24th January he passed away due to which the film got canceled and the trilogy was never completed. Thus "The Dust of Time" remains as Angelopoulos' final film -- his cinematic legacy to us -- which we can observe as a summary of his style, and a reflection of his oeuvre.

Angelopoulos was one of those few surviving masters who had the ability to form a fruitful synthesis of personal and collective experience. He was a poet of time, in an ontological sense, but also a vital interpreter of our time, giving a unique perception of reality which many of us share, but find hard to express. The milieus of his films always exhale misery, but still include breathtaking, ubiquitous beauty. The images of wind, snowfall and rainy roads do not give form to a mere landscape -- for the landscape has a soul of its own. The viewer looks at the landscape, and it gazes back to him. It is an elegiac moment of cohesion with the universe.

In brief, "The Dust of Time" is a story about a film director and his life. There are two different time levels: the director is making a film, in the present, about his parents' life in Europe after Stalin's death in 1953. Knowing Angelopoulos' style, it is not surprising that these two levels are overlapping. However, understanding the details of the story line isn't important. What is essential, is to see and experience. It is as if each image was a cloth, hiding the absolute image that will never be seen. Each image works as a continuity of its own.

The fact that the protagonist of "The Dust of Time" is a filmmaker associates the film with Angelopoulos' two earlier works "Voyage to Cythera" (1984) and "Ulysses' Gaze" (1995), both of which deal with the possibilities of the cinema to depict reality. However, in "The Dust of Time" Angelopoulos concentrates more on man's loneliness with his memories. Another characteristic theme for Angelopoulos is the relation between past and present. In "The Dust of Time", this theme is treated through dialog between the two time levels. In numerous scenes time and space change abruptly, without a word of explanation, as characters from different periods may come in physical contact with each other. It is never clear whether it's dream or real, but such clarity is unessential and would harm the film to a large extent.

In a word, "The Dust of Time" studies the emotion of existential loss. In his poetics of space, Angelopoulos studies thematic contrasts of appearance and disappearance, absence and presence, distance and intimacy. People are constantly separated by objects that are sometimes concrete, sometimes abstract. This is veritably philosophical, but this film isn't "intellectual" by any means. To my mind, "The Dust of Time" can be easily understood on an emotional level. All it requires is an open mind and a soul capable of receiving beauty. The whole film is more like an on-going poetic impression rather than a strict story. During the film, the spectator goes through emotions of despair, remorse and yearning for touch with the characters.

Although these themes are very universal, some viewers find "The Dust of Time" hard to watch. Arguably it is a film that most likely isn't for everybody, but I would still recommend it for anybody since it asks so little, and gives so much in return. All in all, it's a film, made by an aging man, studying the loneliness of being in the universe as the dust of time sweeps across space -- sometimes so quickly that we hardly pay any attention to it; sometimes so slowly that we seem to wither away with it; and sometimes the dust seems to remain stagnant as though not moving at all.

One thing you could always say about Angelopoulos movies is that Greek melancholic reverence could be felt with a naked eye in almost every single one of his pictures. Dust of Time is so detached from its subject that it is an absolute shame that this is his last picture. Especially considering that half of it, or maybe even more, is in English. Dafoe tries, but there is nothing for him to act as he solemnly glances around with awkward delivery, seemingly never changing his coat throughout the entire movie.

Splitting the timeline in many periods where Angelopoulos is seemingly preoccupied with doing summersaults to show totalitarianism in such an exaggerated farcical manner that you can't even take any of it seriously in good faith. Especially that bizarre allusion in the sci-fi x-ray search scene. One too many unpleasant airport frisks?

The present is preoccupied with an awkward love triangle where truly ancient actors play against 40-year-old Irene Jacob, who is so uncomfortable and unconvincingly aged up that it's hard to believe someone so dedicated as Theo would go for it. I guess he really liked the actress.

As a sequel to Weeping Meadow, it's just aimless. Almost nothing is brought up or expanded on. And the ending, despite its undeniable beauty, still comes off as desperate. It is never a good sign when several characters die seemingly of sadness for the sake of a very plain metaphor about past becoming negligible.

Master of broken love stories, Theo Angelopoulos, presents us the story of the last 60 years, the struggle between the absoluteness of love and the sadness of life.

Three generations move from one place to another like leaves in the winds of immense political changes while we witness the parallels between their personal lives and those social changes in lyrical imagery.

The two different paths taken by lovers who have fled Greece after the defeat of the Greek leftists by the American and British led Royalist army forms the basis of the film. Spyros goes to the US and Eleni to the Soviet Union. Spryos' attempt to take Eleni out of the Soviet Union ends dramatically. Eleni is sent to Siberia and Sypros to jail. They are then separated for decades but finally get together in the US. Their love child has become a movie director whose sole purpose in life is his career in the West while their granddaughter has to live the teenage life of divorced parents, lost in a life with no purpose.

These social changes accompany political changes, somehow West starts resembling East. Siberian gulag security has now become Western airport security while the Russian secret police did turn into Berlin police. On this gloomy background Angelopoulos is not too pessimistic, there is a glimmer of hope, the only generation that can save the Gen Xers from their selfish Baby boomer parents are their grandparents.

Overall, a wonderful movie by one the greatest directors of our time, not only packed with strong historic and political content but also beautiful poetry with many dramatic scenes, one especially standing out. And while Piccoli is good, Bruno Ganz offers a great performance.

Like all of this great director's challenging work, I have a feeling this will improve with repeated viewings, as the sometimes disparate story stands make their connections more clear. On first look I found this full of thrilling moments and beautiful images (as one comes to take for granted with Angelopoulos), as well as a terrific, fun and heartbreaking performance by Bruno Ganz.

However, I also found myself more lost than usual, even being used to Angelopoulos' complex, time, place and style shifting style. At the end of the day I felt unsure how it all added up, or even that the pieces really did all fit. Not unlike an earlier poster I felt a bit like I was watching someone else trying to do a film in Angelopoulos' style, and not quite

pulling it off. That's perhaps a bit harsh. but there's some truth in it.

It felt less sure handed than I'm used to. Character motivations and story choices felt forced or distractingly hard to buy. Even when Angelopoulos' earlier films confused me the viewer, I always felt strongly that the film-maker was never confused, he knew just how and why the pieces fit together, intellectually, thematically and emotionally. This time I wasn't quite as sure.

I haven't seen the previous movie, which this one follows. But I don't think that it matters that much. This movie with a heavy burden is really hard to swallow. The German actor who plays along William Dafoe said so himself. At the Berlinale screening he came up after the movie and stated (more or less, this is not an exact quote): "It is my first time watching this movie, too. I have to admit it's pretty heavy and hard to watch!"

Which made me admire the actor even more (he also played "Hitler" in the movie "Downfall"). And considering the ending of this movie is really lyrical and aspirational, it's almost a shame, that I really had to fight myself during other parts of the movie. It's an odd movie, which definitely will strike a nerve with the viewer. The only question is, will it be an enjoyable enough experience or not? I can't answer that for you, but it's slow pace and a storyline that is anything but linear, will confuse and appall more people than it will attract