CINECITTA, ROME
Nothing ended.
Nothing ever ends.
I return to where our story slept, into the past.
Losing its clarity under the dust of time
and then unexpectedly at some moment it returns like a dream.
Nothing ever ends.
Berlin East Station
Attention: Train traffic on Platform A...
The FD train 111 to Moscow via Poznan, Warsaw...
departing at 18:18 hours is now ready for boarding.
Passengers to Warsaw must change train in Brest.
Good morning!
I'm listening, Jane.
A lady called, she just arrived from Berlin.
And she left a hotel and a phone number.
And actually there is one other thing and it's important.
You gonna deal with it because we have a problem here.
Well, it's the producers. They are seriously
worried about breaking the shooting.
And there's all those other things you said about finding yourself
constantly facing a threat... We are in the situation. It's tense.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
We're ready to screen.
- I don't wanna hear anymore. - All right.
The deal we made still going?
The other man's papers.
Trade Union, he's Greek-American
died in Berlin before leaving from Tashkent.
Invitation from the party, the Greek Communist Party.
Tickets for you and the woman. Permits allow in travel beyond the 60 kms,
there is also the separate sheets of paper.
Be careful. You have to memorize their contents.
You have to answer questions as soon as you get to Tashkent.
If all goes well the next day you leave from Temirtau.
North Kazakhstan.
If everything goes well...
our people will be waiting for you on your return to Moscow.
The crucial zone is the distance
between the station and the American Embassy.
Remember that from now on you are playing with time.
I am, I was born... in New York, the States.
I joined the party in 1940.
THE DUST OF TIME
film by Theo Angelopoulos
Comrade Secretary, I brought him. He just arrived on the train.
Welcome to Temirtau, Comrade.
You understand Greek, right?
What's happening to you, Eleni?
Please, Jacob!
A little water...
All of us Greek political refugees who came...
to Tashkent in '49 live in barracks.
We call them "states".
We came here to Temirtau...
on order of the Politburo to inaugurate a new "state"...
the seventh... We're still few in number...
but more are coming like you to swell our ranks.
Our defeat in the civil war was not the end.
The revolution is not dead!
The time will come when we'll return to Greece for the third round...
for victory.
Comrade Secretary, something's happened. The city's in an uproar.
There's music coming from the loudspeakers in the square.
Excuse me.
Spyros!
I am here under someone else's name.
I'll see you later.
I came to get you, Eleni.
It's like a dream. I never believed at find you.
I was expecting you.
I was on a tour with an orchestra in the northern States.
I was worried.
Deep down I knew that one day you'll turn up in this far corner of the world.
I hadn't heard from you on a long time.
Quite by chance I heard from a fellow in Boston,
that you have been arrested by the military police.
I returned to New York and left on the first flight.
In Thessaloniki everyone was talking about the young students
and I found out the rest.
Your imprisonment and your escape with two other women, political prisoners.
Since then I've been searching for you.
I kept crossing borders, changing trains, stations, passing checkpoints.
I answered with another man's name, another man's life.
I came to get you, Eleni!
There is a train leaving today at midnight.
We don't have much time.
My God!
Do you know where we are?
Something's happened.
The whole town's in turmoil.
People are gathering in the Square outside the town hall.
Oh, God!
Eleni!
I've found you again.
It's you... You're here...
It's as if the time has stopped since that first night when
we danced by the river.
It's you... You are here...
The music has stopped!
Comrades!
Citizens of the Soviet Union!
Today our leader Comrade Stalin has died.
His great heart has stopped beating.
The sun has set.
Comrades!
Citizens of our great country... from Vladivostok to Ukraine,
from Siberia to the Caucasus and the Black Sea... wherever you are...
let us honor the memory of our great leader... with a moment of silence.
Listen to this!
I will call this: "Dance by the River".
The dance that two of them danced.
Later, much later.
Eleni would say:
Lately when I wake up, every morning water drips from my hand
and it has the smell of the river.
It's for you.
Put it on speakerphone.
Go on!
Eleni!
It's all right, dad.
Siberia December 1956.
It's a lost letter.
Cinecitta Studio, This is Classic Section Office.
Please, leave a message. Thank you Yes, this is message for Jane.
Jane, I found Eleni's lost letter. The Spyros.
Please, call me.
Eleni!
Talk to me, please!
Eleni?!
Everything I miss not been able to touch you...
I make up for in my dreams...
Spyros, the train!
We don't have much time!
Eleni!
Siberia 27th April, 1953.
I live in a town. The locals call, 'Lost'.
In an infinite expanse of nothingness...
They sent me here after three weeks of isolation
and interrogation about what I had done.
From my rest in Greece to my arrival to Tashkent... then in Temirtau.
And about you... about you...
We both paid dearly for those grief moments of happiness.
You are in prison and my exile.
A child is growing inside me.
Excuse me, what's happening?
Last night some strangers broke into the hotel and
they locked themselves into the bar.
They drifted desks, drawers, everything.
We found all the computers turned on
TV sets smashed on the floor all over.
They left a strange signature in...
- Excuse me, a second, sorry. - Yes, sure.
Hello Jane! Did you get my message about Eleni's lost letter?
Look... I gonna call you back.
- You saw, what happened? - No, but they told me.
Let's going to the bar.
I've got your message but I was busy the last days
before the press office's getting busy by the summit conference.
Helga... Eleni is going to another crisis.
Like that time we found her at daybreak walking barefoot on the highway.
Yesterday I got back from my trip in the room was a real mess,
paper, glass, photo albums, everything... She nearly trashed the place.
For some time now, ever since we came to Rome Eleni is been avoiding me.
Every so often she's been sleeping at girlfriends'.
But this time it's something else.
I just went to a school and she has been absent for a week.
The principal is giving up.
When I left she snapped, "Perhaps it might be a good idea
to concern yourself alone more with your daughter."
Under the pillow...
I found an old letter of her grandmother's that was lost
and some pictures of the two of them together.
And I'm afraid she is going to do something really crazy.
- What can I do? - Have you walked up on us... she cried every night.
When she needed... When she needed her mother.
I was suffocated at your side. I tried to tell you a thousand times.
But you were somewhere else. Always somewhere else.
Your trips, your work, publicity.
Everything scented around you. You, you, you!
What was I to you? A shadow.
A shadow that followed you.
I couldn't breathe! I was dying every day!
You know from the very beginning, Helga. That I had no choice.
My only home was in these stories...
Every place else I fell like a stranger... I felt lost... I fell lost.
I fell lost!
"HOMICIDE DETECTIVES"
Siberia December 1956.
Yesterday they also brought Jacob Levy.
The German Jewish friend stood by me to the bitter end.
Same faith.
Young communists from Leipzig with his sister.
They crossed the German boarder at 1938 to escape the camps.
He too was punished for his friendship with me by being expelled from party.
I write to you as I can talk to you.
I know my letter will never reach you.
But I leave them from the last passing train
carrying along only icy step, journeying to find you in your cell.
Siberia December 1956.
The funny looking plant that has been climbing up to my window
it's still resisting the snow.
But that three year-old boy, guess who...
only yesterday was still living with me observing it.
Left today.
When I took him to the train from Moscow his eyes were misery itself.
Jacob's sister, Rachel would be waiting for him at the station.
As the train carried him away my heart grows smaller.
I called out your name, his name, I don't know other name.
In your absence, in his absence... touched me... in such a waste land...
touched me.
Tomorrow leaves us hopes.
And the Angel cried: "The third wing!"
- You're Jacob Levi? - Yes.
- You speak German? - Yes.
The director of the Cultural Center is looking for you.
Let's go.
- You're Jacob Levi? - Yes.
- You speak German? - Yes.
Siberia December 1956.
It the space of a single night, portraits
and statues of Stalin disappeared
"XX. Congress of the Communist Party"
You'll be getting out of there, soon.
Alex's changing you.
We heard about it from an old comrade who was transferred here.
I cry from happiness... and then sadness.
Will I see you again?
And the Angel cried: "The third wing!"
- Good morning. - Good morning.
This is Echkart Stein.
He's come especially from Leipzig to take the organ.
We arranged to have it repaired and give it to the Conservatory.
Now you've got to translate.
- Jacob Levi... - Good morning Mr. Stein.
Mr. Stein. You have been invited to take a look at this organ...
and to repair it, if necessary.
This organ is perfect.
It shouldn't be touched.
Mr. Stein says this organ is perfect.
It needs not to be touched.
But how is that possible?
It's remained in this state for so many years.
It was a gift from Prince Orloff... long before the Revolution.
The organ was a gift from Prince Orloff in 1917
long before the Revolution.
Wait.
Siberia December 1956.
Everything I miss not being able to touch you...
I make up for my dreams.
Last night I saw you in a yellow raincoat, climbing on railway tracks.
The yellow hood hid your eyes.
You had no eyes.
Who's there?
Ah, it's you.
Cinecitta Studios. Sound Stage 5.
No, she isn't here.
Good day to you.
Berlin.
Kurfürstendamm.
It's raining.
From the wet streets come sounds, voices... echoes of lost music.
That's strange anticipation.
The city appears to be getting ready to greet the new year...
and the new century.
You've been listening to "Good morning Berlin".
Before we continue with our program...
we have more news about tomorrow...
New Year's Eve 31.12.1999.
From 16:30 to 18:00 our New Year's Eve concert...
will be Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor.
Hello!
It's flight 108 from New York arriving on time?
Diverted to Tempelhof airport? Why?
You mean a terrorist attack?
- Next! - Thank you. Next!
Next two passengers, please!
Woman on the left, turn to your left.
Man on the right, turn to your right, please.
Man on the right, turn to your left.
Woman on the left, turn to your left.
Man on the right, stand facing me.
Thank you! You may both leave.
Next!
Now to your right, please!
And now to your left!
And now facing me!
Thank you! Next!
And now to your left, please!
What do you want from me? What the hell do you want from me?
And now facing me!
I refuse this humiliating process!
- Spyros! - Do you hear me? I won't!
Halt! Freeze!
Let me go! Please! I want to live!
I don't want to die!
I want to live! I beg you!
Please let me go!
We are almost there. Austria is on the other side.
Goodbye Russia, goodbye!
The passengers from the Soviet Union have arrived.
I'm awaiting orders.
Open!
Papa! Papa! Come!
- Papa! - Papa! Come!
You go! Go!
I'm going back.
I was born on the Steppe... That's where my ancestors are buried.
I cannot betray them.
Grandpa! Grandpa! Come on!
Let's go! You'll catch cold!
Grandpa...
♪ Sleep, my joy...
♪ The lights have gone out in the house...
♪ The birds have gone to sleep in the garden...
♪ The fish have gone to sleep in the lake.
Welcome to Austria! Happy New Year 1974!
- Happy New Year, Jacob! - Happy New Year, Eleni!
For our journey... and to Siberia for helping me realize
that everything comes and goes with the wind.
- Shall we dance? - Yes, yes!
Remember Anna, who threw her poems from the terrace of the prison?
I found one the next day on the snow:
"As we walk down and meet clamour and the crowd,
we were troubled by the silent of the angel
wings to touch the Earth, the mud, and cried out:
"The only utopia is the third wing."
The buses are waiting for you.
Attention! Attention!
The Austrian Immigrant Reception Service requests...
that you divide yourselves into two groups.
Those who wish to travel to Israel...
please go to the buses on the right.
Those who wish to travel to the USA or other countries...
please go left.
It's time, Jacob.
I'm not coming with you.
I was expecting that some point it's was going to happen.
All these years... every day I woke up and you were next to me...
I give prays, one more day.
You dreamed of Israel as a return.
For me there is no return.
My destiny takes me somewhere else.
No matter... how many years have gone by... no matter...
what happened between us.
I am someone else's woman.
Let me go.
I didn't want us about this way.
Jacob!
You want?
Jacob!
You were longing for this return.
Go!
I don't want you to be hurt.
Go.
Mother!
So what happened?
I was worried.
Everything is going wrong today.
First to change the airports and now all these Rambo types.
Why did take you so long to come out?
Your eyes were red. What happened?
Where is my little girl?
She had school.
You don't wanna tell me, right?
When I got the message you were coming to Berlin, I was surprised.
I thought we all gonna spend the holidays together in New York.
We are going home.
You are going back? Just like that? And you tell me now?
That's news.
After all these years... the great return.
It's our first trip.
The first journey we take together.
Hello? Yes, it is.
When I brought my parents to your hotel
I asked to see you, but you stepped out.
Whatever they need, you take care of it?
Thank you... thank you.
Yes. Good night!
I'm the one who called you.
I saw you at school.
I don't know where Eleni is now.
Two nights ago she was moved me at my house.
Then she left.
I don't know where to. She forgot this...
- Where is she? - I don't know. I really don't know.
I don't know. Maybe Bruno will know.
Bruno?
Yes, Bruno... Maybe he'll know.
That's Bruno.
Americans...
Uncle Jacob!
- Are they here? - Room 7.
- May I go up? - Of course.
You forgot those kid.
You even forgot my sister who raised you.
It's not true. Your Rachel? You shouldn't say that.
I told you on the phone, I had some problems, divorce...
I'm constantly traveling sometimes I don't even know where I am.
How is Aunt Rachel, anyway?
She lives in Leipzig now.
Permanently she bought our old family home.
Every time I see you I remember the 3 years old boy,
who left Siberia on the train then.
Seven?
Seven.
Oh, Jacob... Jacob!
Eleni.
In Berlin?!
Yes, I... I thought you were in Leipzig
and I was just saying to myself impossible for him to come all this way.
I had some family property matters to settle here and since...
you would be coming through Berlin...
- Spyros? - Your friend is still sleeping.
- Should I leave? I can come back later. - No, no! Stay.
So... How have you been, Jacob?
I am back from the voyage the voyage of memory.
To Poland, to camp to... block 1001.
Father and mother died there.
I haven't slept for days.
I close my eyes and see people with shaved heads smiling at me.
Skeletons... with ashes of their shoulders.
Smiling at me.
Still, Jacob?
Sorry. I didn't mean to... I'm sorry.
Jacob! To the good old days.
Cheers!
Thank you.
To the good old days.
So you're leaving, you're going back home?
I don't know what I'll do.
I'm concerned if I leave Rachel, she'll be alone.
After Dan's death we are all that's left from the family.
Eleni, Am I hallucinating?
I don't understand.
It's not possible.
Doesn't it resemble the one in New York?
I'm talking about the room.
The hotel room we've lived in Berlin, 1974.
The surroundings perhaps.
I don't know.
- Maybe... - Jacob?
Maybe...
We arrived in New York.
You were very nervous of your son who was in Canada to avoid Vietnam.
Fortunately, Rachel was waiting for us.
Behind the glass pane waving her hands like mad.
We went to the hotel.
From the very next day you leave every morning... looking for him.
I pretended I was still asleep.
When we came back New York frightened you. The buildings, the cars...
You kept asking for him.
Holding the address in your hand.
I followed you from a distance.
Why did you turn on the light?
Because it was lit then the last time.
Don't go.
Don't go!
All these endless months... we stayed in Italy...
waiting for the visas.
All these endless months we stayed in Italy, waiting for the visas.
All these endless months... And throughout the journey here...
a young girl... was dancing inside me.
Without you. I don't know what would have been coming.
- Don't go. - You are stronger than I am, Jacob!
Please...
I don't care if you see him as long as I don't know.
Don't go.
It was such a nice evening.
Don't tell anybody about this, OK?
- See you. - Bye.
We have to hurry.
Greetings to Sally, OK?
Oh, Spyros! Hope you don't forget, we talked about.
- OK! Greetings to Max and Sally! - Yes, bye, bye.
What have come over you playing this musical theme?
Lately you have been playing it constantly.
Spyros!
Room 2141 of Washington's Rayburn Office Building.
Richard Nixon became the second president
who stand accused by the Committee of Congress.
Throughout his self-inflicted Watergate ordeal
Nixon remained unwilling to admit, perhaps even to himself,
the weight of his transgressions against truth and the Constitution.
I am...
Mother... all those years... I dreamed about you.
You still in Rome?
She left it at girlfriend's house.
A sweater... photograph of my mother...
and her diary.
To despair of that emerge from her diary, devastating me.
I don't know where to look for her anymore.
I've just come from the police. They kept a photograph of her.
No! No!
No! No! Stop! Stop, please!
There is no point anymore.
I'm sorry.
Here we are.
She works at that bar.
I did all I could, dad.
It was past midnight when we arrived in Toronto.
And then she said: In this town it rains all the time.
- Jacob, when was this building built? - I don't know.
- What are we going to have? Tea? - Spyros, some whisky?
- As usual, two chateau whisky. - For me some tea.
Der Blaue Engel, Good evening.
Tonight? New Year's Eve?
You can't be serious! No.
You won't find anything in the whole of Berlin.
You're welcome. Have a nice day.
It was midnight, when we arrived in Toronto.
We are closing.
We don't serve at this hour.
We are closed.
Spyros!
Do you take Eleni for your wife?
Yes, I do.
Eleni!
Do you take Spyros for your husband?
What do you think? You are going at this hour, Spyros?!
What do you think? You are going at this hour?!
I came, Eleni.
It was a long road.
I remember your letter from Berlin.
Some years letter...
Berlin 10th November 1989.
Mother. Here yesterday we lived a historic moment.
The Berlin Wall no longer exists.
On the street were yesterday and today thousands of Germans and visitors
celebrating, singing, dreaming.
Some predicted, the end of the Cold War also meant the end of history.
I know that like father, you have some reservations all about this.
But it's time we saw a new era.
We finished shooting.
Both the crew and the actors have either left or are leaving.
I'm staying.
Her name is Helga.
When she secretly crossed from East to West Berlin
one terrifying night 17 years ago, she was only 15.
And an unexpected meeting.
In the crowd I got sight of Jacob and Aunt Rachel and her husband, Dan.
They were on the way to Leipzig to find their old family home.
Mother. Last night I dreamt that we walked together
among the ruins of the wall.
But when I turned to look at you, it wasn't you.
A little girl... A little Eleni hold out her hand to me.
Oh, Jacob!
You walked out, I almost lost you.
I stopped for a moment
because someone with an accordion was singing and I got carried away.
Here's again.
One more year.
A year?
A century is about time to like but we barely got wind of it.
Do you smoke a few cigarettes?
- What happened, Spyros? - What's wrong, Jacob?
We dreamt of another world. How was it all lost?
And yet it all begins so differently.
The wind blow out there.
Some of us believed there were the procedures of the skies. But...
As someone said:
We were cast aside by history.
That's right.
...cast aside by history.
- Eleni. Shall we dance? - Oh, Jacob!
I know your mind is on the trip but who knows if we'll ever meet again?
Spyros!
To the dust of time that falls on everything.
Everything! Big and small.
Jacob!
Ah, you wanna dance?
No, no.
Oh, I'm sorry.
We better go back to our hotel.
I call our son.
- Eleni, I'm sorry. - It's nothing.
- Don't say nothing. - It's just some dizzy. Almost gone.
Better to go back.
- Let's go. Our child... - Eleni?
- I'll tell you on the way.. - Bye!
See you!
Youth Department.
As far as the kid is concerned I tried talking to her,
she is not reacting.
At some point she turned to me and looked what I said.
I realized that it's pointless to be continued.
I wanna go there.
You can't. The door is blocked by inside.
Eleni!
Mother!
Open up!
I am her grandmother!
Eleni?
What's wrong, child?
What's wrong?
Come on, love!
Eleni?!
Eleni!
I want to die. I want to die!
I want to die... What's wrong?
I am going to get a doctor.
Eleni?
Eleni!
What's happened?
I need to sleep.
Grandma!
I need to sleep.
Is that you, Jacob?
Eleni, how is she?
She is asleep. They both are.
- Am I disturbing you? - You? Is that possible?
I was coming to say good bye, anyway.
Chateau whisky?
Deutsche Welle.
Ladies and gentlemen, in a little while...
you will be listening to our New Year's Eve concert.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, opus 125.
Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Thank you.
To the new century!
- Are you all right, Jacob? - Yes.
Time to go!
But where?
To Eleni.
You once said, for you there is no return.
Now that's true, only for me.
I won't cry at the Wall of Tears.
Bon Voyage, little Eleni!
The third wing, Spyros!
Eleni!
Why? Why did you get up?
The year is ending. I haven't set the table.
Eleni!
- I should set the table. - This isn't time yet.
Set the table...
Spyros...
Our son...
and my little Eleni... and Jacob... Jacob!
Jacob?
Where is Jacob?
We're all here.
- What's wrong, Eleni? - I don't feel well.
Eleni!
Wake up!
I'm coming to get you.
Eleni! Wake up!
Get up!
Eleni... Give me your hand!
Eleni, we are late...
Outside it was snowing.
The snow was falling silently on the city that was still sleeping.
On the deserted streets, the water of the canals,
on over the dead and the living, one time passed and time passing
on the universe.
Subtitles by mitbrille Karagarga@2013