La polvere del tempo

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.

Through references to the Thebaid cycle the three films that make up TRILOGY follow the destiny of Hellenism as recorded in the relationship of two people who first meet as children in 1919 during the flight of the Greeks from Odessa only to lose each other and find each other again in different time periods in different parts of the world, living through the great historic events of the 20th century and the turn of the 21st.

The second film is entitled "THE DUST OF TIME" (THE THIRD WING) and unfolds in the former Soviet Union, the Austrian-Hungarian borders, Italy and New York between 1953 and 1974, from the eve of Stalin's death to Nixon's resignation in the United States and the fall of the Greek junta.

The third film is entitled RETURN and is set in present-day New York.

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.

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