Written by Andreas Babiolakis

This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. Eternity and a Day won the forty third Palme d’Or at the 1998 festival.

The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Martin Scorsese.
Jury: Alain Corneau, Chiara Mastroianni, Chen Kaige, Lena Olin, MC Solaar, Michael Winterbottom, Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Zoe Valdes.

I wasn't mature enough to appreciate Ulysses' Gaze when I first saw it. I thought Theo Angelopoulos was a style-before-substance kind of guy when teen me was watching Harvey Keitel traverse across Greece in search of lost films shot by the Manaki brothers. It took me a few years to realize that Angelopoulos creates films for those that have lived and experienced many of life's tribulations. Rewatching the film as an adult, I understood this character's quest, the necessity for the sense of belonging, and the preservation of legacy. Angelopoulos is so proud to be Greek, but he feels conflicted as a member of the human race: having to accept all the ill wills that we are responsible for. Nonetheless, I was a young adult when I started to understand Theo Angelopoulos, and so it was time to try another film of his. His magnum opus, The Traveling Players, seemed too daunting as my next step (I was so naive), so I wanted to try something else.

That next step was Eternity and a Day, and what an exhilarating film this is. Angelopoulos is like Greece's answer to both Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. With his patient, dreamy, metaphysical storytelling, Angelopoulos doesn't provide a narrative as much as he takes your soul on a tour of the afterlife and the empty spaces amongst the living. Any Greek is in love with the white and blue colours of their motherland: from the hot sand on the beach with the cascading sea, to the houses and churches that populate the islands. There's a reason why these are the colours of the nation's flag, and no one has done this colour combination better than Angelopoulos does. It's as clear as crystal in a film like Eternity and a Day, and so is his gliding camera style that makes us weave in and out of reality and time. Rules don't exist in his films, and Eternity and a Day is one of his most rewarding risks.

We start the film off with Alexandros, played magnificently by the limitless Bruno Ganz (outside of him being dubbed by a Greek actor, I suppose). He is an author who has just learned that he is to die soon from illness, and he must get all of his affairs in order before he passes. Almost like this is Angelopoulos' version of Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror, we dip into the essence of a writer as they are due to depart. While Tarkovsky dips into the heart of a poet, Angelopoulos aims for the soul instead: he itches to see what Alexandros may be like as a spirit among us (suddenly, that casting of Bruno Ganz makes perfect sense, considering Wings of Desire). I shouldn't even bother continuing what else happens, because everything and nothing happen simultaneously. This is an exploration of Alexandros as a mortal man, as a legacy, as a being with a moral compass, and as a thinker. Everything that comes after is a test or a vignette that Alexandros faces; it seems plausible in his reality. The only constant is in the form of a young boy: an Albanian street child. It's as if providing comfort for the next generation is Alexandros’ final purpose, and he tries to make the most of it.

No matter how surreal the film gets, enough of Eternity and a Day is rooted in real emotions and responses. Many of the excursions come from Greek history and art: memories that Angelopoulos has to bring to light. I've never been sure if the auteur has tried to evoke the same kind of endlessness that Greek mythology possesses, but his films certainly do. If anything, I feel like Angelopoulos treats the everyday person like the Gods of old: with access to all. His characters transcend physical boundaries and mindsets. Alexandros is on a personal mission, and it plays more like a daydream, and yet we are there with him: getting lost in the world. The long takes and distancing are particularly hypnotic: as if Terrence Malick took note of Angelopoulos during his renaissance (particularly before The Tree of Life). No matter where Alexandros goes, I feel every step of this journey. It may not make literal sense, but I understood every emotional note.

Angelopoulos may have been providing us Alexandros’ "life" as it flashed before his eyes, or it could be the writer's mind failing as he lingers closer to death. Who knows. It doesn't matter. In Eternity and a Day, time is relative and borderline irrelevant. Our brains comfort us with our final minutes, should we be so lucky. Angelopoulos wanted to feed the soul instead: a meal that would nourish one forever. I can't help but wonder if younger me would also not understand the importance of Eternity and a Day: would the searching for one last reason to live – or for life to matter once it ends – be lost upon me? I'm extremely aware of my own mortality now, and so Eternity and a Day speaks to me on a very personal level. Angelopoulos may have been asking the hard questions, but he did so by pointing at that of which he loves the most: the scenery of Greece. For the unfamiliar, Greece feels like an otherworldly heaven the way it is shot here. For the fortunate that have experienced Greece, it's a haven hear: a place to retreat and die peacefully. Angelopoulos spent all of Eternity and a Day finding comfort in death, and this gorgeous, sublime, postmodern epic may very well be what the afterlife may feel like.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.