A Budding Woody Allen Wonder

Rating: 10/10 (6 July 2006)

Love and Death (1975): Starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, James Tolkan, Olga Georges-Picot, Harry Hankin, Frank Adu, Georges Adet, Brian Coburn, Yves Brainville, Henry Czarniak, Sandor Eles, Luce Fabiole, Henri Coutet, Lloyd Battista,Albert Augier, Yves Barscacq, Jack Berard, Jack Berard, Eva Berard, George Birt, Patricia Crown Despo Diamantidou, Leib Lensky, Anne Lonnberg, Ed Marcus, Jackques Maury....Director Woody Allen, Screenplay Woody Allen...
Love and Death (1975): Starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, James Tolkan, Olga Georges-Picot, Harry Hankin, Frank Adu, Georges Adet, Brian Coburn, Yves Brainville, Henry Czarniak, Sandor Eles, Luce Fabiole, Henri Coutet, Lloyd Battista,Albert Augier, Yves Barscacq, Jack Berard, Jack Berard, Eva Berard, George Birt, Patricia Crown Despo Diamantidou, Leib Lensky, Anne Lonnberg, Ed Marcus, Jackques Maury....Director Woody Allen, Screenplay Woody Allen...
Few people, except for Woody Allen's most loyal fans, have heard of his movie "Love And Death" . A comic jewel, it's essentially a "intellectual comedy"; an existentialist/philosophical historical costume epic parody based on 19th century Russian classics (Dotoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin). At the same time the film seems somewhat influenced by acclaimed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal", except this time set in Czarist Russia at the time of Napoleon. Released in 1975, it soon faded from many people's memory in the light of the more famous "Annie Hall" which was released later in 1977. Beloved Hollywood actress Diane Keaton and Woody Allen were already a team before that film, as evidenced in this film and the films they worked on together after this one. As mentioned, "Love And Death" is a parody of Russian literary classics like War And Peace by Tolstoy and Crime and Punishment by Dotoevsky (hence the three word- title Love and Death). Woody Allen stars as Borish Grushenko, an intellectual, sensitive young man from the Russian countryside. He has a brawny brother named Ivan, who is dim-witted but far more attractive to the ladies, an imperious and domineering mother, a father who is dull and seemingly bored of his marriage, and a crazy uncle who believes a small piece of land and small-scale model of a manor is his actual property. Throughout the film, Boris only loves Sonja (Diane Keaton) who is his intellectual equal but who prefers his brother Ivan for a sexual partner. Napoleon's French armies invade Russia and war ensues. Reluctantly, Boris serves in the army and out of pure luck, gets awarded a medal (he is shot out of a cannon and lands on enemy lines, defeating the enemy commander). Later on, Boris and Sonja marry and engage in a mission to murder the tyrannical Napoleon, a mission which fails and results in Boris' tragic execution. The film typifies Woody Allen's blend of social, philosophical, sexual and visual comedy, neatly organized so that despite its overwhelming excess, it's still very logical and well-written. Almost every line of dialog and piece of visual is a joke- i.e. Sonja says to her first husband's friend, "While my husband's away let's play", with a clear sexual implication but in the next shot they are playing a piano and violin duet, or the shot of Boris hanging from the Cross early in the film as he says he was "different from his brothers". The characters, especially the principal ones, lament their mortality, seek great truths, question God's existence, and search for meaning in a world that has gone mad. Even with all this good stuff, this film is a lesser success and considerably amateurish next to Allen's more mature, complex and yet hilarious films from the 80's and early 90's. But nevertheless, "Love And Death" is highly enjoyable and represents a time in the life of Woody Allen when he was budding as a comedian, but not yet reaching the level of success he began with "Annie Hall". The scenes between Allen and "Death" are really innovative and well-written, as is the entire script, and the cinematography is superb, looking as if it were a serious historical film epic along the lines of "Doctor Zhivago", making the film somehow even more funny for its "serious" look. That final monologue by Allen is wonderfully true and well-spoken, and yet somehow comic and sad in its delivery. It seems to express that, even in the face of the inevitable Death that claims everyone, we must enjoy life, seek happiness and meaning and laugh and dance with Death as Allen does in the final shot. With music by the Russican Romantic composer Sergei Prokofiev(Woody Allen favored his light but yet serious music for this film) and Woody Allen's usual flair for thinking man's comedy, this is a great early Allen film and a nearly forgotten treasure of comedy.