The Dust of Time

Scene from Theodoros Angelopoulos: The Dust of Time

Directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos
Released in 2008
Running Time 125 mins
Country of Origin Greece/Germany/Italy/Russia

Reasons for watching: The Dust of Time was part of a unfinished trilogy by Angelopoulos. Along with The Weeping Willow the films were a reflection of the residue of history on the lives of contemporary individuals. Angelopoulos is renowned for his use of long, slow takes and therefore was a director I wanted to explore as a potential influence on Slow Cinema.

Usefulness: The Dust of Time is an intriguing film as Angelopoulos creates films that favour extended scenes and in many ways his aesthetic preference complements much of Slow Cinema. The Dusk of Time reminds me a great deal of Tarkovsky’s cinema as both this film and Tarkovsky’s films have a temporal liquidity where the films narration and images slip in and out of temporal moments representing how history and memory unexpectedly interrupt everyday moments. The flexibility of setting creates poetic resonance within specific objects and pieces of music where meaning reverberates and changes depending on where and when they appear. There is a vastness to the film therefore which isn’t present in Slow Cinema where the isolation of the individual is preferred over the vast metaphysical reflections on history as focused on by The Dust of Time.

Verdict: D.