Death and Love.

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2015)

After spending the entire Christmas holiday in bed with a burning- hot fever,I decided that I would start the year by looking at the loves and deaths of Woody Allen.
The plot:
Waiting to be put in front of a firing squad, Boris Grushenko starts to look back on his life.
Decades earlier:
Despite being the smartest member of the family,Boris finds himself being completely ignored,with Boris secret desire to ask his second cousin Sonja being blown to bits,by Sonja's sudden decision to get married.Telling everyone within ear shot that his not suitable to be a solider,Boris is pushed by his family to join the Russian army,in their fight against Napoleon.Whilst he barely has a clue about how to use weapons,Boris finds himself becoming a war here,after he and 13 others are the only soldiers to have survived a war against the French.With her husband having recently died,Sonja decide,that whilst she may never love him,that Boris is someone that she likes,who she will give her hand in marriage to.Getting set to finally settle down,Boris finds his life to become more hectic than ever,when Sonja hatches a plan to assassinate Napoleon.
View on the film:
Whilst the European-on location filming was such a joyful experience that lead actor/writer/director Woody Allen would not film out of the US again until 1996's Everyone Says I Love You, (with this movie having Allen try and deal with a crew that barely spoke English,everyone (apart from Allen!) getting food poisoning,a falling out with original studio Fox,constant bad weather,Allen and other cast members getting seriously injured,and to top it all off,the negatives to the battle scenes being damaged,which led to them having to be re-shot!)Allen reveals a surprisingly sharp eye for the vast scope of the films battle scenes,with Allen using tightly held shots to show the "sheep" on the battlefield.Along with casting a wide net for the battle scenes,Allen also smashes down the 4th wall with a stylish force,as Allen goes from showing Boris dreams in a minimalist manner,to Boris & Sonja delivering spidery monologues in front of an unsettling stoic camera.
Written after Allen had read War & Peace at a rather quick pace, ("It's about Russians!!") the screenplay takes a perfect approach to the satirising of Russian novels,by skilfully mixing jokes designed for those who have read the books, (such as the ending being a riff on Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment)and those who haven't (such as Boris village looking like the dour dead zones featured on the paperback cover of Russian novels.)Along with satirising Russian novels,Allen makes sure to keep the loves & deaths of Boris at the heart of the movie,with Boris upbringing having a whimsical folk charm which is matched by the slap-stick joy of his attempt to kill Napoleone.
Running across the battlefield terrified,Woody Allen gives an excellent performance as Boris,with Allen combining his wicked one- liner delivery with a fantastic hapless nature,as Boris finds things to have gone way over his head.Giving the title a touch of beauty,Diane Keaton gives a superb performance as Sonja,with Keaton casting a warmth across Sonja's face,as she slowly falls in love for Boris,whilst Jessica Harper gives an atmospheric performance as Natasha,as each character discovers their love and death.