"I'm dead and they're talking about wheat!"

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2012)

'Love & Death' was Woody Allen's last film before his 'reinvention' as a more serious film-maker with 'Annie Hall' in 1977, and is an uproarious spoof of classic Russian literature such as 'War & Peace'. It opens with 'Boris' ( Allen ) in a cell awaiting execution. What circumstances brought him to this predicament? The film goes into flashback mode. Boris is in love with 'Sonja' ( Diane Keaton ), his beautiful cousin, but she prefers his brother 'Ivan', whom Boris claims cannot even write his own name in the ground with a stick. He is then caught up in the Napoleonic Wars ( "we kill Frenchmen, they kill Russians, before you know it, its Easter!" ), and against the odds, becomes a hero, seducing a beautiful countess ( Olga Georges-Picot ). He finally marries Sonja, but it is not a happy union, although she manages to make some wonderful dishes out of snow. Sonja then comes up with her grand master plan - the assassination of Napoleon Bonaparte...
As with his other films of this period, most of the gags have a strong Marx Brothers flavour, along with anachronisms such as Boris and a gang of cheerleaders suddenly appearing on the battlefield, along with a hot-dog vendor. There is a duelling sequence which one can imagine might have worked for Harpo Marx. Keaton, as ever, is excellent. Her meaningless discussions with Boris over the futility of human existence are priceless. Boris is agnostic; "If only I could see a miracle...if only God would just cough!". My favourite moment is Boris quoting from the Bible: "Yay, I will walk through the valley in the shadow of death...come to think, I will RUN through through the valley in the shadow of death...you get out the valley quicker that way!".
'Love & Death' ends with the sight of Boris and the Grim Reaper dancing through trees. It is easy to see the scene now as symbolically bringing to a close this era of Woody Allen movies. He was smart to make the change when he did as the television show 'Saturday Night Live' was about to unleash a new wave of comedians - such as Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Dan Ackroyd - who went on to define 80's American film comedy.