Borders for me are not geographical concepts, and I don't mean that there are borders in the sense of artistic limits, either. . . . Borders are simply divisions, between here and there, between then and now. In this film it is a question of a division between life and death. It's a demarcation line: a dying man, his last day. How do you pass your last day? What can still happen to us? What will we do with the hours that remain? Do you think back on the life you've lived? Or do you allow yourself to drift, expose yourself to all coincidences, follow someone, open a window, meet a new person, open yourself to anything that comes, to the unexpected coming-together of the unconnected, which then turns out to connect, after all?
—Theo Angelopoulos
The director of this film tells the viewer what happens to a poet on the day he faces death, what we do with the time we have left when there is only one last day left to live, and the way we will face it. When talking about whether the subject matter will limit his own play, the director cleverly answers the question by asking it more rhetorically to the questioner and explaining his own understanding of boundaries. The director turns the film's old poet's approach into a line of questioning that covers both the main points of the film and his own understanding of life at this age. Although the film is a border trilogy, borders are not a figurative concept for the director. Just as the borders in this film are more a division between life and death than a geographical one.
As the daughter reads the letter left by her mother, the film takes the poet back to the time of her daughter's birth and he rethinks his own problems at the time, his lack of care for his wife and his neglect of their feelings. But in reality, the poet is walking alone on the beach. This shift in time and space creates a strong visual impact. It provokes us to think about life and why the past is always joyful and the reality is always sad and desolate. Is this the result of what older or dying people experience and think about. Even the director admits to thinking about death when he gets older (Fainaru, 2001), in order to rediscover and look at life. It is hard to find people who are younger and have less experience to think and feel this way. It is like the poet and the child in the film.The child lives a life of wandering because of political issues, much like the poet did when he was young. But at this time the child does not think about the meaning of life.
The old poet gives him all the help and love he has in his remaining day, trying to make up for his regrets, to reflect the values of society and to present a heroic image. (Makrygiannakis, 2008). In the final scene where the poet returns the child to his homeland, it is both a realistic return of the child to his homeland and a symbolic expression of his own spiritual return.
It is common to think about the meaning of age as people get older, and the meaning of the poet's life was his poetry, very personal, and the director used long shots to follow many of the scenes as he filmed Alexander, highlighting his personal presence . It shows that in this life of him, poetry was his life. The old man's last day and the child's encounter are meeting someone new. But the apparent meeting of strangers has a profound moral: the old poet is the end of life, the child is the beginning of life, and their meeting constitutes exactly the cycle of life, in line with the director's statement that they are connected. The film begins with a long shot and ends with a long shot, constituting a complete, full day, each day is Eternity.
Word Count: 540
References List (APA)
Angelopoulos, T. (Director). (1998). Eternity and a Day [Motion Picture]. France: Canal plus.
Fainaru, D. (2001). Theo Angelopoulos interviews . Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press.
Makrygiannakis, D. (2008) The Films of Theo Angelopoulos: A Voyage in Time . (Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.) Retrieved from
Makrygiannakis2009.pdf
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