This is Amber's post about Eternity and A Day as an assignment for a course in European Cinema. Please feel free to leave your comments or likes below.

“Alexandre, are you coming? We’re going to the island.” The film “Eternity and a day” starts with the voice-over of a conversation that happened between kids. They are discussing the adventure of diving under the sea to see swallowed lost city. The camera moves along with the dialogue, focusing on a classical house. The lost city was buried by time and the question among ingenuous children naturally flows to the question of“What is time?” “Grandfather says time is a child…that plays dice on the shore. Are you coming then?” The theme song of the movie begins to play. A slow, poetic, philosophical tone is constructed by the beginning.

The story is about a poet named ‘Alexande’ at the end of his life, walking through the day between memory and reality. Cinema is the art of dreaming. The film blurs the boundary between reality and dreams by stylistic long-takes and makes an illustration of this idea. Angelopoulos put the understanding of hometown, poetry, and loneliness are integrated into this film. The ending of the film links all the propositions. Thus, this blog will emphasize on the discussion of the last shot.

The shot begins from 1:58:33 to 2:05:56 and it lasts for 7minutes23seconds. The long-take of Angelopoulos exists as a device to express his style. A two-hours commercial film used to have between 900 and 1800 shots while all of Angelopoulos’s films contained less than 150 (Bordwall, 2005). It's a device that people who like it immerse themselves, people who don't like it say “drowsy.” The avoidance of editing is ‘the basis of his style in his tetralogy’. I would say I will stand with the ones who enjoy it. And the discussion will show how it makes me immersed in his cinematographic universe and engaged with his expressions.

The transition technique cannot be ignored. The ending shot transits by a shot of the travel-stained Alexandre stares at the camera and the monologue of his wife Anna starts. She reads the forgotten letter of expressing her feelings on the day of celebrating their newborn daughter. Anna expressed her bitter-sweet feelings when facing the long-lasting itinerant husband who lies by her side now. As Anna says: “Give me this day”, the balcony door opens slowly, and the ending starts. Her words come true, he is back to that day again.

The usage of the door is noticeable and playful as a transition of dream and reality. There had more than one application in this film. For instance, the switch between the swimming child and dying old man in the fade-out shot of the sea out of the balcony door (00:04:54-00:08:47). 

Also, the first encounter that Alexande’s break into that day with Anna and theirfamily (0:13:32-0:18:15). 

The transition technique has continuity. In all these shots, he walks into the dream with the sound of reading the letter from his late wife. Angelopoulos utilized audio-visual language to invite the audience to immerse them into the world of Alexande. The film arises all my senses and naturally arouse my faint sadness. The contrast between past and now is cruel. When you're old, looking back to the past days, will you feel regret? How should you face the fact that everything has already gone with the wind and nothing can be change at present. The slowness of the pace does not make me feel bored. Instead, it leaves me space to ask myself these questions. It creates an echo constantly chambers in my soul. That’s the magic of cinema.

The way that the camera moves is also noteworthy. We can find that this is a dolly shot or can be called a tracking shot, in which the camera moving forwards. It focuses on a scene that takes place beside the sea. In the first half of the shot, Alexandre is not present in the frame and the camera moves horizontally at aneye-level height. Examining the frame, we may find that it used a long shot which is similar to the distance between the audience and the stage. This tracking shot also creates a point of view feeling by eliminating the existence of the protagonist, we are sharing Alexande’s sight. The transition technique has continuity. In all these shots, he walks into the dream with the sound of reading the letter from his late wife. Angelopoulos utilized audio-visual language to invite the audience to immerse them into the world of Alexande. The film arouses all my senses and naturally arouse my faint sadness. The contrast between the past and now is cruel. When you're old, looking back to the past days, will you feel regret? How should you face the fact that everything has already gone with the wind and nothing can be changed at present? The slowness of the pace does not make me feel bored. Instead, it leaves me space to ask myself these questions. It creates an echo of constantly chambers in my soul. That’s the magic of cinema.

According to Giannetti (2017, pp. 114-116), the tracking shot aims to emphasize the process of action and it belongs to a point of view shot. Also, trucking may build suspense by creating an expectation of purpose. Indeed, this depicted shot can make me immerse in Alexandre’s eyesight by the process of walking forward and expecting something to happen in the end. The slowness of movement reinforced and magnified these feelings. This is suitable as an end of the film for its richness of space and time. From 2:00:05, Alexandre steps out on the left of the frame and leaves a back towards the audience. Then the camera moves with Alexande’s back and we cannot see his facial expressions while his wife looks delighted.

Then the frame turns closer. It used full shot to show a joyous scene of people dancing around. 

Then, it moves closer, a medium shot shows the dance between the wet-clothed Alexandre and his late wife. The background music constructs an idyllic style. But it has a sad undertone. 

The camera moves closer and it turns into a close-up which shows the happiness on the separated couple’s face. It starts to add Alexande’s monologue of his plans for tomorrow with the frame turning into a full shot. Anna dances and answers the question of “How long will tomorrow last?” with the answer of “eternity and a day”. Then she leaves, from the right side of the frame. 

Suddenly, the camera moves forwards and backward, leaving Alexande alone in the frame with his back. The background of the frame is the endless blue sea. The blueness contrasts with the back of Alexandre. His monologue mixed with the sound of the waves. These audio-visual experiences make me feel a sense of noisy loneliness. 

The old man muttered to himself: “Stranger, Me, Very late, My little flower…” In the eternal day of my life, I am the stranger who comes very late…My little flower, with the words I bought, Will you still remember me? Will you forgive me? Will you wither? The answer to the question is trapped in the flow of the river of life. What is the time? It’s a question that shines in eternity.

Reference

Bordwall, D. (2005). ANGELOPOULOS, OR MELANCHOLY,in light: On Cinematic Staging(pp. 140-289). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, London: University of California Press.

Giannetti, L. (2013). 认识电影 [Understanding Movies]. 成都: 四川人民出版社 [Chengdu: Sichuan People's Publishing Press.]