Europe Endless - The Mediterranean: Landscape in the Mist (Dir Theo Angelopoulos, 2h6m, 1988)
From time to time my imagination is caught by single shots in cinema - shorn from their respective films, they remain powerful, and, at times, revelatory. I found Studio Ghibli through one TV ident in the mid 2000s, I discovered Lawrence of Arabia via its famous well scene, and the specialist lens that introduces Omar Shariff, and Kurosawa's Ran from a single still of the late Tatsuya Nakadai as the beleaguered warlord Hidetora, descending the stairs of a castle that is on fire for real. These are a few among countless images, many of which have led me to seek out a film, and from there, often to cover it. For the last few years, the image of a colossal stone hand, slowly rising out of a Greek harbour, has haunted me - appearing three quarters of the way through Theo Angelopoulos's 1988 coming of age tragedy, Landscape in the Mist, it is at once arresting and otherworldly. An early draft of this season, some time ago, would have bookended...
