Love and Death

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(5 stars) - My favorite Woody Allen movie
I know everybody thinks that Annie Hall is one of Woody Allen's best movies from his middle period, but I would posit that Love and DEath is his best of any period. Loaded with utter lunacy like his earliest movies, it has the advantage of superior production values and a stellar cast. A parody of the canon of great Russian novels from the 19th century, it is packed with comic situations and funny lines. Filmed in Russsia with Russian extras, it looks and sounds the part. My dear husband and I quote from the movie extensively in our daily conversation, and view the movie whenever the rush of Life overwhelms.

(2 stars) - 2 stars out of 4
The Bottom Line:

A lukewarm comedy that offers an equal paucity of laughs for those who are and those who aren't familiar with Russian literature, Love and Death is one of the least accomplished films in Allen's oeuvre, containing none of the anarchy of his early films or the gravitas of his later ones.

(4 stars) - Another uneven `near' masterpiece...
As everyone who has read my reviews regularly knows, I am a newfound Woody Allen fan; but that newfound love has set afire in my heart and he has quickly risen to the tip top of my favorite directors list. I've made it a point to research and watch as many of his films as I can get my hands on and this one is yet another in the long line of wonderful reasons to continue researching and adoring his work. It's witty, clever and poignant, for Allen always inserts tidbits of reality and humane understanding into his humor.

His films always feel important.

Truth be told, this is not the best Allen film, but it is truly delightful for the most part, and Keaton and Allen have amazing chemistry; the kind of chemistry that makes any movie worth seeing at least once.

Taking a stab at Russian literature, Allen weaves a (for the most part) hilarious tale of Boris, a dopy loser of a man who has fallen in love with his cousin Sonja who only has eyes for Boris's brother. After a freak accident during wartime makes Boris a hero he makes his feelings for Sonja known. She agrees to marry him (thinking he is soon to die) but she winds up falling in love with him, and when war threatens the peace of their family they plot to kill Napoleon.

Many know Allen and Keaton are marvelous together based on their Academy Award nominated (winning for Keaton) performances in `Annie Hall' alone, but one should experience them here to see an early tell tale sign that they were meant to be together. On the screen these two light up when the other speaks, working in sync to create a wonderfully cohesive representation of the modern couple. They play off one another beautifully and add layers to the others construction of character. They understand each other, and most importantly Keaton understands Allen's humor, and she uses it to her advantage. She knows how to make his dialog work; how to cement herself in the script and breathe life into her performance. Allen has always had a knack for finding the right woman to do his bidding. From Keaton to Farrow to Johansson, he has always been able to find a woman who knows how to make his humor work.

`Love and Death' has many scenes that just ooze forth with hilarity (I was in stitches during the whole "No, you must be Don Franciscos sister" scene) and his parading of everything from Russian lit to Ingmar Bergman (another director I'm starting to adore) is top notch and well worth the time. This is not as strong as some of his other work, like `Hannah and Her Sisters' or `Deconstructing Harry', but it is quirky and witty and uneven (in a good way) and is surely a film you need to see in order to fully appreciate this man's talent.

(4 stars) - Death Be Not Proud
Are you looking for shear intellectual discussion about the nature of existence and the quirkiness of our universe a la My Dinner With Andre? Are you looking for a Cecil B. DeMille historical epic of obviously heroic proportions with the figure of Napoleon as the centerpiece? Are you looking for solely slapstick on the order of the Marx Brothers (not Karl)? Well, look elsewhere. However if you want a fairly entertaining movie from the early days of Woody Allen's seemingly endless array of cinematic efforts that combines all of these in one film then this may be for you?

Woody has always, even in his poorer productions, had flair for language and for pointing out the myriad human foibles that make human existence funny, and on occasion tragic. Here Mr. Allen has a love/hate relationship with the classics of 19th century thought and literature, specifically the Russian variant. By my account he ran through every possible thought or literary gem that any of the great Russian writers of that century put forth from Pushkin to Dostoyevsky to Tolstoy. From intellectual nihilism to various gradients of pacifism and Tolstoyan non-resistance to evil. And for what purpose? Well to discuss, in his own slapstick way, the vagaries of love and death just like the title of the film advertised.

Naturally, Woody cannot do this in a totally serious way, nor would we want him to. The story line is the not uncommon one with Allen- unrequited and messy love. Here Allen plays the misbegotten son of Russian landowners in the Russia of Napoleonic times. That however is all window dressing for his real point- finding love in all the wrong places, primarily with his cousin (second cousin) Sonya played by his then real life paramour Diane Keaton. Allen's "heroic" military exploits, his desire to do right by Mother Russia along with dear sweet Sonya get him into the fix that leads to his untimely death. Along the way we get treated to all the intellectual fads that interested Woody (and us) in the 1970's. In viewing this film in 2008, unlike some other Allen efforts , for example, Manhattan and Annie Hall, I have to say that this film is today strictly for Woody aficionados or those who struggled intellectually with those issues of "love and death" back in the days when we had plenty of time for that kind of introspection.

(5 stars) - Great movie
Though not my favorite Woody Allen film, I would definitely recommend this one. Perhaps not to start, but once you've seen his more iconic films (Annie Hall, Manhattan, etc.). It also helps (but definitely isn't essential) to see some of Bergman's movies, because Allen tends to spoof those a bit. 4 and 1/2 stars.

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