L'éternité et un jour

Not as heart-warming as "Kolya," nor as powerful as "L'Avventura," but still a movingly worthwhile experience. The leaps from one point in the hero's lifetime to another are poignant. Many of the directorial flourishes are quite memorable; the wedding sequence is not to be missed!

Our hero, Alexos, exists in the present urban world in which the weather is gloomy and almost everyone wears black; but his mind wanders to the past, where the sun infallibly shines over the shore and nearly all wear white. Yet when Alexos imagines himself in his past, he's still shrouded in black; he can't even dream that he could be happy, until a street urchin appears to rattle him from his shell.

This film does contain elements we've seen before, but arranges them in a fresh way. It reminded me how precious and fleeting each moment really is, and how wondrous it can be to share our moments with others.

This film was such a pleasurable experience to watch. I was expecting a considerably depressing venture but the end left me filled with a variety of conflicting emotions, including a hint of rapture and a dash of melancholy. There are times where Angelopoulos left me contemplating about the life I have led. To many critics, the pace of this film was too slow, on the other hand I felt that it flowed beautifully, taking its time to arouse the audience's emotions. The music by Eleni Karaindrou touched my soul for it was able to guide the actors to make a truly magnificent tale from the heart.

The most Bergmanesque of Angolopoulos's films. Simpler and less epic than most of his work, with fewer of his trademark breathtaking images and grand themes. Yet this story of a dying writer spending his last day before entering the hospital -- never to leave -- has a deeply elegiac melancholy, and his attempts to find meaning by saving an Albanian street urchin are often moving, if occasionally sappy. The same is true of Bruno Ganz' (unfortunately dubbed) relationship with his wife and family, told mainly in flashback, Much is moving, some is hokey and forced. But Ageloupolus' use of images to make film a poetic medium is always worth watching, even when flawed.

Since I traveled to Prague in 2003 and bought Eleni Karaidrou's album "Eternity and a Day" I was wondering when and where could I get this movie.

I got it and it was incredible for me. Poetry, photography (I think it is the best photography I've ever seen in a movie) and music in an amazing movie THAT I DID NOT UNDERSTAND because it's in Greek (no English subtitles in the release I've got).

You don't need to understand their words to feel it, to cry and to laugh when the moment comes. Angelopoulos has made, in my honest opinion, a master piece of theater-movie.

Buy it, keep it, show it to your children, to your parents...

Thessaloniki this day. A very sick bearded man leaves his seaside house to go to the hospital for the few days remaining. Suddenly he decides to search the area. He rescues a small Albanian boy chased at the traffic lights by the police while cleaning car windows for a living. He saves the same kid when ready to be sold to foreigners. This happens in Greece but it can happen anywhere. He makes a tour with the kid. He visits the frontier looking like a Nazi camp with spectators watching while hanging on the wire fence. He speaks with Dionysios Solomos,the poet of the 'Hymn to liberty' and 'Free begieged'.A poet that used to pay people in Zakynthos to buy a word for poetic exploitation. Theo Angelopoulos plays an important sociophilosophical role as a very talented director in expressing the human relation,the national language and many other concepts. Angelopoulos purports to open a new road for understanding the world,life,death,love,poetry,music,child innocence,a man to die very soon,a wedding with the married couple dancing in circle movements. This movie has a faster mode than previous ones by the

same director. First prize in Cannes in competition with Benigni's 'life is beautiful'. A film with the warm performance of Bruno Ganz. A film with the magnificent music of Eleni Karaindrou. A masterpiece for 10 out of 10.