Previous Eleni Karaindrou scores like Ulysses Gaze have had little to do with on-screen action and everything to do with telegraphing spiritual shudders deep into the core of the listener. Eternity And A Day is no different. The power of her work lies in her variations on a single theme. This reduction and repetition in the score creates a beguiling, meditative air, which is appropriate for a film about a man slowly dying and contemplating what his life has not amounted to over the years. On the first track "Hearing The Time", Karaindrou sets the movie in motion, opening with a lush and shivering murmur of strings and the precursor to the "Eternity" theme: three quick draws on a violin. "By The Sea" and "Eternity Theme" introduce the rest of the pattern, the former using a delicate solo piano and the latter with a full orchestra. This conversation between theme and drone takes place in different tongues throughout the soundtrack. An apprehensive mandolin plucks out the notes over an unearthly fog of French horn and strings on "Depart And Eternity Theme--Variation I", and a solo accordion calls the theme to itself in loneliness on "Bus--Part I". Karaindrou's work, when coupled with the epic, humbling mastery of director Theo Angelopoulos, leave one with head dazed and jaw dropped. --Michael Woodring