The Sands of Time in Paris, at Midnight.

Rating: 10/10 (17 December 2011)

Could this be Woody Allen's best picture? I wouldn't know, because I ask myself that very same question every time I've seen one of his pictures. When this film was over I was unable to get up from my seat, I was left that weak by the nostalgic enormousness of this project.
This man is incredible, what seems to be a comedy (a light comedy) succeeds in giving us the chance to reflect deeply into our most profound sentiments and confront them with those of his characters on the screen, and with them, getting deeper and deeper into trying to get some meaning from this crazy event we call life.
The idea of mixing different (parallel) historical times presents an excellent opportunity to develop Allen's ideas about life, love, wishes, the levity of human relations, the unexpected encounters that will change our destinies in a jiffy... What an extraordinary philosopher this man is!!!
The plot and the successes in it show us how true is that aphorism: "The grass is always greener on the other side". And as long as that is kept on a fantasy plane everything is alright, but once --maybe by magic-- we get to that fabulous other side and spend a little time there, it will painfully show us that the whole thing was nothing but a mirage. Everyday living seems to us pale and shallow, years later we look at that present (now past) with different eyes, nostalgia sets in and the shallow, commonplace past becomes now a paradisaical dreamy golden place.
I think it was Thorton Wilder that once said: "When I die I want to go to Vogue" (the fashion magazine so popular in his time), in my case I definitely say: "When I die, I want to go into a Woody Allen picture". That will make me very happy indeed!