Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Alexandre (Bruno Ganz), a respected writer, received bad news: He is terminally ill and has to enter the hospice tomorrow. It may be his last day. And then the question: "How long does tomorrow last?" He tries to wrap up his life; he only has today to do it. To find a new home for his dog seems to be a priority.Alexandre has flash-backs to his youth, and becomes quite nostalgic. He visits his daughter, suggesting that she looks after his dog "as he will be going away tomorrow". Fruitless; her husband does not like dogs. He hands his daughter a bundle of letters, all from his wife Anna (Isabelle Renauld), dating back many years. She reads one of her mother's letters to Alexandre, and as she does so, a picture unfolds: An aloof Alexandre not returning his doting wife's affection, too self-centered and preoccupied with his writings. The aged Alexandre's regret is palpable.On his way home, on this last day, Alexandre spots a street urchin who cleans car windows at stop streets being chased by police. Impulsively he opens the door and tells the young boy to get in. Alexandre decides to help the boy (Achileas Skevis), an illegal immigrant from Albania. He tries to get the boy back to the Albanian border so that the boy can return home in safety. But does the boy really want to go back?The dialogue between Alexandre and the boy is illuminating. "I see you smiling, but you are sad", the boy tells Alexandre. Alexandre narrates a story that changes into something more: the art of writing and imagination, 'buying' words when you have run out of them. Alexandre realizes he is running out of time; he would like to get the lad safely on his way, and he still has to pay his elderly mother a last visit.'Eternity and a Day' is a complex film with many elements: It touches on the nature of life and art, regret and the inevitability of closure. The cinematography by Yorgos Arvanitis and Andreas Sinanos is glorious; the sunny coastal scenes, but with discontentment simmering below the surface; the misty landscapes in the mountains close to the Albanian border. The sound track and effects superbly fit the ambiance of the film. Good work by Eleni Karaindrou and Nikos Papadimitriou. Then the acting: Bruno Ganz gives a powerful performance. Acting by Isabelle Renauld, Achileas Skevis and Fabrizio Bentivoglio is excellent too. 'Eternity and a Day' deservedly was awarded the Palme D'Or. My score: 10/10.

If I saw this and "Landscape in the Mist" a year ago or so, I'm not sure if I would like them or even be able to finish them. Brought to my attention by the tragic passing of this great director, I feel like these films are hitting me at the right time. Because while I can perhaps understand that some may find something like "Eternity and a Day" to be boring, self- indulgent, or the most notorious pretentious -- on the other hand, it is for me something enchantingly beautiful and unlike few if any movies I have seen before. The angle I'm going to use to approach this one might be far-reaching and/or random, but bear with me and realize I usually tend to mentally tie-in what I have just watched into what I have watched previous. But in this case, it is what I have just read. I couldn't help but think of the character of this film as the Stephen Dedalus character from Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", but now 40 years or so into the future, on his death-bed and in despair. The protagonist here, likewise a poet, has lived a detached isolated existence from his wife and family. It is what Stephen would have wanted, so as to express himself freely as possible, but now in the waning years of his life the detachment has left him with an emptiness, a void he is trying to somehow fill (again, harking back to the oppressive emptiness felt in "Landscape in the Mist"). Angelopoulos incorporates letters from the characters' wife, narrated by her in poignant fashion, and often seamlessly transitions into flash-backs. This is again something intimate, yet suddenly sprawling. While initially one is enveloped in a natural setting, Angelopoulos then soon drifts into the fantastical and dream-like. Like with "Landscape in the Mist", it all shouldn't be taken so literal. I believe to derive the greatest pleasure from this one should just sit back and let Angelopoulos take you where he wishes, for even if some stretches may not fully register, the high-points so totally make up for it. And once again, the visual compositions are just astounding and at the very least continuously interesting, with here the often long takes aren't even as noticeable straight away and once I realized them, I was then amazed in some scenes. There is this purity in the visuals which few directors works have been able to match and none surpass. Purity is probably the best and only way I can describe it.

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...

Shamefully neglected in Britain,Angelopoulos is one of modern cinema's few remaining grand masters.Here he loads his tale- of a terminally ill poet who leaves his family seaside home and befriends a refugee Albanian boy- with not only his usual intellectual rigour and visual majesty,but also massive emotional resonance.A mesmerizing journey seamlessly interchanging sundrenched memories and landscapes in the mist: bleakness illuminated with shafts of purest joy,it is a film touched by angels.