"As empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

Rating: 8/10 (18 May 2008)

It's always interesting to observe Woody Allen in his various "early, funny movies." In the period beginning with 'Take the Money and Run (1969) and ending with 'Annie Hall (1977)'  a major turning point in both his film-making and how his talents were perceived by the public  we can see the director's work growing in maturity and intelligence. In 'Bananas (1971)' just several years earlier, Allen had melded an assortment of random gags into something of a political satire; many of the jokes worked, some didn't, and the resultant film was a funny, if bewildering, anarchic comedy with a clumsy narrative structure. With 'Sleeper (1973),' Allen looked towards the future, and his dystopic vision of a society gone haywire provided a comfortable combination of witty dialogue and nostalgic slapstick humour, even if some sequences retained touches of juvenility. 'Love and Death (1975)' is the most profound of his "transition" comedies, and, in the classy setting of nineteenth century Russia, the comedian delivers his thoughts on life, death, God, war and sex  but mostly sex.
'Love and Death (1975)' was obviously produced shortly after an Ingmar Bergman marathon, and the film is both an affectionate homage and an enjoyable spoof of 'The Seventh Seal (1957),' Bergman's memorable meditation on the nature of religion and death. The perfect bittersweet ending sees Death, cloaked in a white sheet, leading our hero in a Danse Macabre across the countryside. Also targeted by Allen's razor-sharp flair for parody are the epic Russian novels of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, such as "Crime and Punishment," "The Idiot" and "War and Peace." A singularly-absurd recreation of the Battle of Waterloo, which  among other anachronisms  is catered by a New York hot-dog vendor, is also an amusing send-up of Sergei Bondarchuk's impressive box-office disaster 'Waterloo (1970),' and even Bonaparte himself makes a surprise appearance as both an assassination target, and to demand the completion of the pastry to be named in his honour.
Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, in their third of many collaborations, work together perfectly as cousins (and later partners) who like to bicker endlessly about the meaning of life, their conversations descending swiftly into dubious pseudo-philosophical ramblings of which I was able to make neither head nor tail. With the exception of one bottle gag that wouldn't have been out of place in a Chaplin film, most of the humour is purely verbal, and Allen even experiments with breaking the fourth wall, a style of comedy that he would implement with astonishing success in 'Annie Hall.' In terms of story, 'Love and Death,' in spite of its episodic nature, comes together more completely than any of Allen's previous films, and the jokes are consistently funny enough to draw a laugh. Considerably funnier than that other famous historical comedy released in 1975 (if I may be so bold), this is one of Woody Allen's funniest movies, with more than enough intelligent humour to go around.