Great movie has under-appreciated aspects

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2011)

A friend who felt I was in need of cheering up sat me down in front of Love and Death, and whilst it had the desired effect and was a very funny movie, I feel the need to point out that there is more to it than that.
Ghislain Cloquet was directing the photography here, no fool for sure, having worked with Robert Bresson, Roman Polanski, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras and Jacques Becker. Part of the humour is the visual references, to Slavko Vorkapich's seminal Napoleonic battle montages for The Firefly (1937) for example, and also more obviously to Battleship Potemkin. There is a great example of deep focus work whilst Allen's character Boris masquerades as Don Francisco and tussles in the background whilst a conversation occurs in the near foreground. Frankly I found that shot quite movingly beautiful and almost forgot to laugh. The movie gives a whirlwind tour of the cinematographic repertoire, and there is some good wide angle shooting to, as well in textbook lessons in composition.
The ladies on show prove that Allen had a good eye for female beauty, and I found the movie almost embarrassingly erotic at points.
I enjoyed myself immensely, discovering Prokofiev's upbeat Lieutenant Kijé (Suite for Orchestra, Opus 60), and delighting in the intellectual silliness of the debates and also the sheer determined optimism of clothing Death all in white. Allen's self-pillorying (the crucified child) is economical and provokes belly laughter.