The Suspended Step of the Stork

He notices an old man (Marcello Mastroianni) whom he suspects is a famous politician who, years ago, disappeared without a trace.In The films of Theo Angelopoulos: A Cinema of Contemplation, Andrew Horton writes that the images in Suspended Step "force us to meditate, in a clearer light, on the concept of borders and the territories-geographical, cultural, political, and personal-they lock in and out."In Suspended Step, the journalist does not discover his "Rosebud", but rather gains an appreciation of the possibility of a new humanism in the process of border crossing.The final shot of the reporter watching phone lines being built embodies this idea, "offering the healing touch of movement beyond boundaries."[3] New York Times critic Caryn James noted that although The Suspended Step of the Stork has "all the elements of a first-rate Angelopoulos film", it suffers from a "bland, banal" protagonist that "dissolves suspense wherever he turns."
Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni promoting the film at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival .
Theo AngelopoulosTonino GuerraMarcello MastroianniJeanne MoreauGerasimos SkiadaresisChristoforos NezerDimitris PoulikakosGiorgos ArvanitisEleni Karaindroutranslit.Theodoros Angelopoulos1991 Cannes Film FestivalGerasimos SkiadaressisAthinodoros ProusalisMihalis GiannatosBalkansCitizen KaneThe New York TimesReconstitutionDays of '36The Travelling PlayersThe HuntersAlexander the GreatVoyage to CytheraThe BeekeeperLandscape in the MistUlysses' GazeLumière and CompanyEternity and a DayThe Dust of Time"Three Minutes" in To Each His Own Cinema