Eternity and A Day

”For the last few months, my only contact with the world has been this unknown neighbor of mine, who always answer to me with the same music. Who are they, what are they like? One morning, I wanted to go and meet them, but I changed my mind. Maybe it’s better not to meet and imagine them.”

(credit: https://syncscollective.com/eternity-and-a-day-sonsuzluk-ve-bir-gun/)

In the movie, the main character, Alexandre, a famous Greek writer and poet. He is terminally ill and knows that he is living his last day before dying. The fact that he knows his soon death makes him question his existence. In fact, a philosophical approach dominates the whole film. The inquiries we will feel throughout the entire film will refer to the concepts of existence and time. Especially, the main theme at the core of the film was felt with the ‘How long will it last tomorrow?’.

(credit:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156794/mediaindex)

” -How long will tomorrow last?

+Eternity and a day. ”

At the beginning of the film, the first philosophical approach comes with the question ‘What is time?’ As the film progresses, the narrative of time also intertwines and we see that the past is narrated by hosting the present. He remembers that he neglected her family while she spent his life on literature and poetry in the scenes he returned to the past.

”My only regret Anna, -but is it only one?- is not to have finished anything. I left all as a draft, shattered words here and there.”

Existential inquiries are intense in the film. Tomorrow is a symbolic time. The past has an end and Alexander exists as much as he can experience the eternity of tomorrow. If he can experience his existence through her own temporality, he can only make sense of her death by realizing temporality.

”If I had time I would tell you the story of a poet who buys words.”

(credit: https://gazetekarinca.com/2018/04/yonetmen-theo-angelopoulos-ile-sonsuzluk-ve-bir-gun-uzerine/)

The movie also depicts the rescue of a small child. The first word that he learned from the child during a day spent with him, ‘corfulamu’, is said to mean the heart of a flower and to refer to the child sleeping in his mother’s arms. This corresponds to the loss of belonging to both Alexander and the little boy. When we consider, the little boy did not have a family and had to emigrate, he was deprived of belonging, while Alexandra worked with words all his life. They both found that warm feeling they were looking for in each other within a day, and when the little boy had to leave, they felt a sharp pain.

(credit:https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/31850/Introspective-Greek-drama-Eternity-and-a-Day-at-PEFF)

Furthermore, in our main character, we observe the man’s search for meaning. He does not only regret what he cannot complete, but he is also hopeful to pursue meaning. He’s still looking for words to buy for himself, and he’s still questioning many things from his life. He’s still looking for the meaning of love and how it is possible, what the words he searched for throughout his life actually mean, what makes him suffer. With the sentences he made during his visit to his mother, he actually reviews his life, questions what emotions he has experienced, in what way he is incomplete, and how he could live. Somehow he suffers from some things that he cannot reach their meanings.

”Why mother, nothing happens as a wish, why? Why does one have to rot in silence torn between pain and desire? Why did I live my life in exile? Why when I felt at home, only when I could speak my own language. My language… when I could find the lost words or bring the forgotten words out of the silence. My only at that very moment could I hear the echo of my own footsteps in the house? Why? Tell me, mother. Why can’t one learn to love?”

RESOURCES:

• TAŞ ÖZ, P. (2019, January 10). “SONSUZLUK VE BİR GÜN” FİLMİNDE ZAMANIN ONTOLOJİK SORGUSU. The Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art and Communication. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/685307
• ASA 🎥📽🎬 Eternity and a Day (1998) a film directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos with Bruno Ganz, Isabelle Renauld, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Achilleas Skevis. (2020, May 28). [Video]. OK.RU. https://ok.ru/video/1792045484742