The Great Scenes # 20: Eternity and a Day (1998)

Directed by Theo Angelopolous

This is probably the most obscure film featured in this series. It's a marvelous, hypnotic piece of work so it shouldn't be. This film is from renowned Greek director Theo Angelopolous and it's about a poet who finds out he is dying (played by Bruno Ganz) and he befriends a little boy who's an illegal immigrant from Albania trying to escape the atrocities of his country and avoid being deported. He ironically gets invigorated with life in this special bond he forms with the boy. This is an absolutely wonderful film since it manages to be moving and life-affirming without being the least bit sappy. It's slow for some but rewarding. This is the climactic scene in the film. In this scene, the poet and the little boy decide, out of a whim, to take a little round trip in a bus before the boy stows away in a ship and they encounter various eccentrics and peoples of different colors. It's so Felliniesque in a way (which is appropriate since one of the writers co-wrote 8 1/2, haha). This is a truly excellent film. So check it out.