The Dust of Time

In 1999, A, an American filmmaker of Greek descent, receives a phone call from his melancholic daughter at the Cinecittà studio. He rushes back to his apartment in Rome, where he finds a letter his mother, Eleni, wrote to his father, Spyros, in 1956.

In 1953, Eleni and Jacob, a Jew of German descent, watch a newsreel in the Soviet industrial city Temirtau (now in Kazakhstan). Spyros arrives, and he and Eleni jump onto a tram, ditching Jacob. The tram arrives at the public square in front of the government office, where Stalin's death is publicly announced. That night, following an intimate encounter, Spyros and Eleni are arrested and separated.

In 1956 in Siberia, Eleni puts her three-year-old son on a train to Moscow, where Jacob's older sister will take care of him.

On New Year's Eve 1973, Eleni and Jacob cross the border from Communist Hungary to Austria. After celebrating the New Year together, Eleni ends the relationship, encouraging Jacob to go on to Israel.

In the summer of 1974, Eleni finally finds Spyros in New York’s suburbs. However, she leaves without greeting him after realizing that he is already married to another woman.

In winter 1974, Eleni crosses the border from the United States to Canada. There, she and A meet again for the first time in many years. A drives Spyros to an Ontario bar, where Eleni works. Spyros proposes to Eleni, which she accepts.

In 1999, Eleni and Spyros arrive in a reunified Berlin. Jacob visits and the three go out to the station. There, Eleni feels dizzy. Spyros phones A and is informed that their granddaughter has been found. Eleni and Spyros go to the old building where their granddaughter barricades herself among addicts and vagabonds. Eleni enters and rescues her granddaughter. They return to A's Berlin apartment, and Eleni lies down in her granddaughter's room. After visiting, Jacob drowns himself in the Spree river.

On New Year's Day 2000, Eleni dies. Spyros and his granddaughter look out of the window. After a while, the two run hand in hand under a snowy Brandenburg Gate.

• Willem Dafoe as A
• Irène Jacob as Eleni, A's mother
• Michel Piccoli as Spyros
• Bruno Ganz as Jacob
• Christiane Paul as Helga
• Tiziana Pfiffner as Eleni, A's daughter
• Alessia Franchini as A's secretary
• Reni Pittaki as the film composer

The Dust of Time was shot over a four-month period, starting in 2007.{{cite web|first=Alexis|last=Grivas|url=http://www.screendaily.com/theo-angelopoulos-pulls-dust-of-time-from-venice/4040040.article|title=Theo Angelopoulos pulls Dust of Time from Venice|work=Screen International|date=28 July 2008}} Filming took place in Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, and Greece.

The Dust of Time premiered at the 2008 Thessaloniki International Film Festival.{{cite web|first=Ronald|last=Bergan|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/nov/25/1|title=Angelopoulos pulls the punches at Thessaloniki|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=25 November 2008}} It was shown at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival.[http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20090081 Program of the 59th Berlin International Film Festival]

The score by Eleni Karaindrou was released on the ECM label in 2009.

The Dust of Time received some positive reviews in the Greek press.{{cite news|author=Maria Katsounaki|url=http://trans.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_qsite1_1_12/02/2009_267133|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716055027/http://trans.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_qsite1_1_12/02/2009_267133|url-status=dead|archive-date=2011-07-16|publisher=Kathimerini|script-title=el:Η Σκόνη του Χρόνου|language=Greek|date=2009-02-12|accessdate=2009-02-23}}{{cite news|url=http://www.imerisia.gr/article.asp?catid=13774&subid=2&tag=9594&pubid=5447160|script-title=el:Μια ιστορία που σκέπασε η "σκόνη του χρόνου"|publisher=Imerisia|language=Greek|date=2009-02-11|accessdate=2009-02-23|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717013757/http://www.imerisia.gr/article.asp?catid=13774&subid=2&tag=9594&pubid=5447160|archivedate=17 July 2011}} Peter Brunette of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a mixed review, stating that the plot had improbable situations and describing the film as "a curious mixture of the brilliant and the absurd."{{cite web|first=Peter|last=Brunette|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/film-review-dust-time-92901|title=Film Review: The Dust of Time|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=12 February 2009}} Dan Fainaru of Screen International felt that it is Theodoros Angelopoulos' most affecting and personal film in years.{{cite web|first=Dan|last=Fainaru|url=http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/europe/features/the-dust-of-time/4042143.article|title=The Dust of Time|work=Screen International|date=27 November 2008}} Derek Elley of Variety criticized the film as "a tired-looking attempt to say something significant by a 73-year-old auteur who has neither anything significant left to say nor the cinematic smarts to say it with."{{cite web|first=Derek|last=Elley|url=https://variety.com/2009/film/reviews/the-dust-of-time-1200473607/|title=Review: 'The Dust of Time'|work=Variety|date=17 February 2009}} Vrasidas Karalis found the film to suffer from overplotting, and viewed its "depictions of intersecting temporalities" as inventive but confusing.{{Cite book|title=Realism in Greek cinema : from the post-war period to the present|last=Vrasidas|first=Karalēs|isbn=978-1786720771|location=London|oclc=969376158|date = 18 December 2016}} In the book Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos, Angelos Koutsourakis wrote that "the expository dialogue [...] often comes across as wooden" and stated that the film had a "bristling recalcitrance".{{Cite book|title=The cinema of Theo Angelopoulos|others=Koutsourakis, Angelos,, Steven, Mark|isbn=978-1474409117|location=Edinburgh|oclc=907178216|date = 8 October 2015}}

Ronald Bergan was more positive, writing in The Guardian that "the film sometimes veers from the profound to the portentous, from the sublimely ridiculous to the ridiculously sublime. However, these weaknesses fade beside the strength of the great set pieces [...] and the passion of the narrative."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/nov/25/1|title=Angelopoulos pulls the punches at Thessaloniki|last=Bergan|first=Ronald|date=2008-11-25|website=The Guardian|location=London|language=en|access-date=2018-01-24}}

In a press conference for the Greek media, the director was asked about the critics for his film and replied that "the directors are not chosen by the critics or by the audience but by the time" and that for him all of his films are chapters of the same films, "Chapters, as he said, of a big book, about human destiny, about the times passed and about the times coming".{{cite news|url=http://www.skai.gr/articles/news/culture/%CE%97-%CF%83%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B7-%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85-%CF%87%CF%81%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%85/ |title=The Dust of Time |publisher=SKAI |language=Greek |date=2009-02-11 |accessdate=2009-05-25 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717003812/http://www.skai.gr/articles/news/culture/%CE%97-%CF%83%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%B7-%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85-%CF%87%CF%81%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%85/ |archivedate=17 July 2011 }}

{{reflist}}

• {{Official website}}
• {{IMDb title|0765442|The Dust of Time}}
• {{Rotten Tomatoes|staub}}

{{Theodoros Angelopoulos}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dust of Time}}

Category:2008 films

Category:English-language Greek films

Category:Films directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos

Category:Films scored by Eleni Karaindrou

Category:Films set in Greece

Category:Films shot in Cologne

Category:Films shot in Berlin

Category:Films shot in Nizhny Novgorod

Category:2008 drama films

Category:Greek drama films

Category:2000s English-language films

Category:2000s Greek films