Landscape in the Mist

Enigmatic and elusive, Landscape in the Mist always seems beyond full comprehension. Although austerely beautiful (director Angelopoulos and cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis' sense of composition is impeccable), this bleak film about two runaways searching for a fictive father who lives in Germany keeps its emotional distance. In other words, you appreciate its artistry, but it's a dispassionate appreciation. Stylistically, Landscape in the Mist brings to mind the films of Robert Bresson and Michelangelo Antonioni -- its barren tableaux seem from another world. Angelopoulos favors long, static takes in which characters gaze off-camera at some wondrous event ultimately revealed to the audience. (The most striking of these images involves the retrieval of a giant stone hand from the sea by a helicopter; like some strange and mysterious oracle, it's never explained.) As the two persevering children on a symbolic quest of a dream, Zeke and Palaiologou are nothing short of remarkable, never playing their characters' plight for any false sympathy. If Landscape in the Mist were a little less oblique and emotionally more accessible, their performances would resonate with heartbreaking tragedy.