Why did we live our lives in exile? Why didn't we know how to love? Angelopoulo's Eternity and a Day (1998) gives us the answer —— because of time. By showing the experiences of an elderly poet, Alexander, on the last day of his life, the film tried to discuss the philosophy of poetry, time and life with the audience. Angelopoulo's typical long-take provided the proper sense of rhythm, structure and poetry for the film. Therefore, this blog will analyze a more-than-three-minute-long shot of 13'33-16'48 in the film, which included the scene where Alexander sent his dog to his daughter's house and recalled his wife, so as to feel the beauty of Angelopoulo's long-take in more detail.

Angelopoulo's lens was like an old man in his twilight. The smooth and slow tracking shots were the picturesque dream-making tools of Angelopoulos. The lens was like a pair of eyes to construct the movie world of Angelopoulos. At the beginning of the clip, Alexander came to the door of his daughter's house, and then the camera slowly moved forward to follow Alexander's perspective and entered the house of his daughter. The audience also followed Alexander to see the warm yellow decorative lights and lush green plants, the sun shined through the hazy white curtains to illuminate the whole living room, the whole scene is full of vitality and warmth. But Alexander stood with his dog against the light, in the gloom, out of place in his daughter's world. Here, Angelopoulos also used the technique of centering and aperture framing (Bordwell, 2005). Alexander was in the center of the screen, and the bright French window in the background made him more deep and lonely, successfully attracting the audience's attention and guiding the audience's mood. The narrow hallway was like a dark tunnel of time and space, symbolizing Alexander's solitary wandering in time and space and reincarnation.

The camera then continued to follow Alexander as he steped into the house, slowly showing the audience a panoramic view of his daughter's living room. More ubiquitous white symbolizing purity and light and green symbolizing hope and vitality appeared in the shot. The daughter and son-in-law in the next shot were also wearing white bathrobes, which continued to magnify the black sunset of Alexander in the scene. Similarly, the scene that begins at 22'36 in the film also lead the audience to follow Alexander's step by step exit from his daughter's world into the original darkness. This approach gave the audience an unparalleled immersion and empathy.

Later, Alexander and his daughter sat down to chat, and the camera changed to shoot from a high angle, with them as the center of the screen to slowly pull in on Alexander. In this process, the setting of Angelopoulos hidden mystery showed one by one. The clock in my daughter's house was a projection, shifting erratically, as if to ask: Where is time? What is time? As the camera zoomed in, the photos recording the growing-up process of daughter in the background become clearer and clearer, as if to answer and prove the existence and passage of time. Alexander sat backlit and hesitating, and the overlooking camera amplified his loneliness and vulnerability.

The long shot eventually turned into a close－up shot, carefully capturing every nuance of Alexander's expression as he walked to the window. Open the door, the camera took the viewer through a fluid time travel into Alexander's memory. It wasn't until the next shot that the light really hit Alexander's face. In addition, the reality part of the movie is always foggy and sad, while the memory part are always bright and beautiful.

The sound design and scheduling in this clip are also impressive. The clip begins with an accordion theme song, Eternity Theme, which slightly subdued, as if emanating from the house, breezy and hopeful. The pure and simple tone of the accordion also symbolizes that every life in the world cannot escape the cycle of birth and death (Liu, 2019). As the daughter's bright home unfolded, the sound of a happy bath and the daughter's laughter came out, while the music grew stronger and full of movement, as if everything was moving forward and full of power. However, the scale showed a downward trend, and the muted tone was matched with the gloomy light and the old face of Alexander. The music changed in strength and weakness at the same time, which also had a strong narrative and overflowing emotion. This contradiction is consistent with the tragic theme of Angelopoulos's film (Liu, 2019). Until the daughter began to read the letter, the background music died away, and the daughter's voice stood out in the silence. Later, memories and reality met, when his wife's voice with more full of emotion to join. At the same time, this voice-over becomes the audio bridge to the next shot. From this point on, the wife's monologue also served as a bridge between reality and memory throughout the film.

In the end, the line design in this scene, though not much, provides the audience with a lot of information. First, the interaction and dialogue of the characters point to two key clues of the film. The letter from his wife serves as a clue to the past, and Alexander wants to write a poem to serve as a clue to the last day in reality. Secondly, audiences can feel from the daughter's tone that she did not care about the letter which Alexander attached great importance to. In addition, the daughter refused to take in Alexander's dog simply because her husband didn't like animals, and in the next scene, the audience can learn that the daughter and son-in-law sold Alexander's cherished ancestral home without permission. However, it is also clear from the lines that the daughter was not indifferent to her father. Similarly, it seemed a perfect day when daughter was one mouth old, but wife knows that it's not really happiness.

So far, the film continues to ask the audience why we don't know how to love. The wife's letter traveled decades in time to reach Alexandria, which may hint at the answer the film is trying to tell us. Decades later, the daughter will be where Alexander is now, perhaps in a new cycle.

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References

Bordwell, D. (2005). Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

Liu, N. / 刘宁 (2019). A brief analysis of the tragic beauty of accordion music in the movie Eternity and A Day / 浅析电影 《一日永恒》中手风琴音乐的悲剧美. Modern Music /当代音乐. 2019, (1), pp.147-148.