(Mia aioniotita kai mia mera)
Directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos
133 minutes
In Greek and Italian, with English subtitles

There once was a Greek director named Angelopoulos who made epic films in his homeland. They were films about the displaced, exiles, and the borders - both national and personal - that separate us. His cinema is a struggle to understand our broken history, tangled delusions, all the various forms of displacement, and being on the wrong side of the border. They are about individuals who don't fit in with rapidly changing environments - dictatorships, postmodernism, neoliberalism. Societies that try to blot out eternity by fixating on the present moment. His movies are explorations and journeys concerning time, history and geography.

This was one of his last films, made with the bold and tender German actor Bruno Ganz. In this film he plays a writer named Alexander who is on his last legs, dying from cancer. He is grappling with the idea of death, trying to prepare to cut loose, but in the process he is also becoming more open to the world around him. He begins drifting through the streets, and one day by chance he meets a young Albanian kid who is living as an illegal immigrant. Facing his last days on earth, Alexander decides to go on a trip and take the boy back home. So the movie is certainly about coming to grips with different kinds of borders, including the border between life and death, but also about the plight of exiles and illegal immigrants.

The films of Theodoros Angelopoulos are never grim, even though they take on serious issues. There is an unmistakable poetry about them that makes them radiate. They are relaxed, and give you space to think about and reflect on what you are watching.