Some classic films grab you, others don’t. Eternity and a Day, with a title which sounds like a Mills & Boon novel (this could be down to the translation), felt like it tightroped between bathetic genius and doughty self-importance. The set-up of an ageing writer taking a young Albanian immigrant under his wing feels as though it is in danger of feeling maudling, and as the film stretches towards tomorrow, that is indeed the case. At other moments, such as when the writer played by Bruno Ganz with his usual doleful charm, rescues the boy from a trafficking gang, the film has an urgent, shocking power. There are many who will be seduced by Angelopoulos’ fragrant pacing and wistful time games, but the film as a whole felt to this viewer as though it was trying to use the story of the immigrant boy to lend it an emotional heft which the journey of the writer lacked. Once upon a time I saw all four hours of the Travelling Players at the NFT and was blown away: in Eternity and a Day it felt to me as though the director was aspiring for a metaphysical power which his film never quite achieved.
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