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The camera moves through the streets, from the silence of morning to the humming lights of nighttime; streets, paths, and the river define everyday events and minor stories in a montage that is both dramatic and melancholic. This important example of the French interwar avant-garde emphasizes a social point of view and entices us through the inventive imagery of the observed events, into which it inserts staged scenes. Comical and unflattering details create a poetic image of Paris in one of the first movies to define the genre of “city symphony”. (Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival)
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Made with avant-garde charm by Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti at a time when cinema was gaining its self-confidence, Nothing but Time is poetic realism anticipating the mosaic of Paris, the first in a series of urban symphonies (followed by Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, Man with a Movie Camera, À propos de Nice). The film doesn’t seem as cohesive as Ruttman's or Vertov’s contributions to the “genre” (despite its circular structure), but it very imaginatively and sometimes even humorously uses juxtapositions and the peculiarity of the film medium.
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