Youth Without Youth
Tags: philosophical, psychedelic, avant garde, suicidal, flashback

Plot synopsis:
In 1938, Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), a 70-year-old professor of linguistics, pining after the love of his youth, Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara), travels to Bucharest, the city where he and she met at university. Feeling that his fruitless search for the origin of human language has condemned him to a solitary, wasted life, Dominic is intent on committing suicide after this one last journey. However, while crossing the street, he is abruptly yet non-lethally struck by lightning. In hospital, Professor Stanciulescu (Bruno Ganz) informs Dominic that, much to both their surprises, the lighting appears to have regenerated him into a much younger man. Soon after, while residing at the Professor's home, Dominic also discovers that he possesses strange, psychic capacities.
As Romania is invaded by Nazi Germany, Doktor Josef Rudolf (André Hennicke) begins to show an interest in Stanciulescu's miracle patient. Since Dominic's budding powers have blurred his perception of reality, he is bamboozled into mistaking a Nazi spy known only as the Woman in Room Six for an erotic fantasy, who discovers during their nights together that he has developed a talent for speaking in tongues. Meanwhile, an alternate persona, invisible to human eyes, presents itself to Dominic as his “Other” from outside space and time. When Dominic asks for proof, the “Other” obliges by bringing him two roses out of nowhere. Unbeknownst to Dominic, Stanciulescu has witnessed the event and overhears his friend ask himself, “Where do you want me to put the third rose?” Understanding the Nazis' designs, Stanciulescu persuades Dominic to escape from Romania.
Living like a spy, Dominic eventually winds up in Switzerland towards the end of the war, where he is confronted by Doktor Rudolf at gunpoint in an alleyway. Rudolf argues that Dominic’s existence supports the Nazis' ideal of the superman, and that the coming nuclear conflicts can only be survived by a superior species of man. In the background, the “Other” confirms this to be the case. However, in refusing to cooperate, Dominic manifests telekinetic powers which manipulate Rudolf into shooting himself. Subsequently, Dominic returns to a normal existence and resumes his linguistic research. Having realised that the lightning strike has partially lent him the capacities and knowledge of future humanity, he develops a secret language for his audio diary, to be deciphered long after the nuclear apocalypse.
Many years later, Dominic encounters a woman named Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara) while hiking in the Alps. The “Other” reveals her to be the reincarnation of Laura. When the mountains are hit by a violent thunderstorm, Dominic rushes to her rescue and finds her chanting in Sanskrit, which he greets her with to gain her trust. During her stay in hospital, Veronica now identifies herself as “Rupini”, one of the first disciples of the Buddha. Suspecting she may now be afflicted with a condition similar to his own, Dominic calls the Roman College of Oriental Studies for aid, who inform him that Rupini's last act in life was to retire into a cave for meditation on Enlightenment. Since the cave’s location is unknown, the scholars, led by Professor Giuseppe Tucci (Marcel Iures), agree to fund an expedition to find it in India, hoping Veronica’s past self will guide them. The venture proves a success when a local Boddhisatva recognises “Rupini” and directs her to the place of meditation. Following this discovery, Veronica becomes herself again and falls for Dominic.
The couple elope to Malta, where for a time, they live happily together, until Dominic tells Veronica in her sleep that he has always loved her. This causes Veronica to writhe in bed as if possessed and begin chanting a language even he does not understand. The “Other” explains that she is speaking in ancient Egyptian, having travelled further back along the path of her past selves. For the next two weeks, Dominic learns how to control this state in Veronica, leading her to regress ever further in time and speak previously unknown tongues. However, Veronica's health begins to decline from exhaustion, and Dominic declares that he cannot continue these sessions, or even being close to Veronica, since his proximity to her is accelerating her age. Over the objections of both Veronica and the “Other”, he leaves.
Despairing, Dominic returns to the town where he taught as a professor. His alter ego appears to him in a miror and reveals the future of mankind; nuclear warfare will unleash an electromagnetic pulse, giving birth to a new, powerful human species, of which Dominic is but the first member. Veronica symbolised the dawn of man, and he stood for the dusk. Outraged at the idea of sacrificing millions of lives in the name of evolution, Dominic shatters the mirror, causing the “Other” to vanish, yelling incoherently in an unfamiliar language. In the morning, townsfolk find Dominic's body, lying dead at the bottom of a staircase. As Veronica’s voice is heard echoing “Where do you want me to put the third rose?”, the rose appears in Dominic’s lifeless grasp.

Review: I felt really good watching a legendary filmmaker like Coppola before the special screening (in Bucharest), walking on the stage and thanking sincerely to the Romanian cast and crew, and in the end, thanking all of us "for Mircea Eliade".
It will change the way you feel about time and life, the way Eliade changed Coppola from an old mainstream Hollywood director into an arty European film experimenter..
As the film is impossible to summarize here, I will get to a quick conclusion.Bottom line: a heavy feeling film, with a complex script and a lot of philosophical ideas of Eliade's scattered through the story; also some of his personal obsessions: orientalism and the loss of the love of his life.
A linguistics professor, Dominic (Tim Roth) is an old man when he gets struck by lightning in 1938, then proceeds to age back to 40 in recovery, only to then find that he's being watched- and planned for abduction- by Nazi scientists who want to use his newfound super-powers (mostly that he can, at times, harness powerful energy, as Dominic describes as "out of a science fiction novel").
The comparisons are endless.But what remains, at the end of trying to figure out what the hell Youth Without Youth will say as its ultimate message, is an original work, sincerely with the verve of a filmmaker who just says 'f*** it' and makes the movie he wants to make on his own terms (with, subsequently, his own money).
If there is any risk to the project it's that Coppola gambles on narrative cohesion with elements like two Dominics following the lightning strike (one of which, of course, prods the other to complete his life's work as a "failure"), or the power of emotion with two people in love vs.
It is a deeply philosophical movie that appeals to the reality matrix of people, trying to immerse you into some kind of a trance, where you begin to think like the author of the book, and the main character.
A complex and challenging film, from one of the great American directors, and part of the continuing magical adventures of Tim Roth(The Legend Of 1900), this time around Roth is a linguistics professor trying to develop a theory of the origins of hum...(read more)an language and consciousness at his 70th birthday when he is struck by lightening that reverts him to his youth.
Naturally the two fall in love, and the odd couple are happy enough until her ancient language fits, get more frequent, and dive further and further into primitive languages, much to Roth's joy, though his love ages more and more with each regression.Like I said Youth Without Youth is an ambitious mix of science fiction, world war 2 spy espionage, romance, meditation on death, aging, linguistics, the origins of consciousness, time, philosophy, the atomic bomb, multiple personalities, and reincarnation.Watching Youth Without Youth is a bit like reading an overwrought but well written novel, where you can appreciate the skill of the speaker's use of language more than any profound statement being made.
This movie doesn't reveal truths of that sort but nonetheless shows the mindset and tribulations of people who (at least claim to) know great things.There are HINTS of paranoia, loves lost, sacrifices made; strange paradoxes (body doubles, visual incongruities, time warps); and great "evils" (Hitler, mad scientists, Nuclear bombs).
She keeps going back further in time speaking in ancient languages enabling Dominic to get very near to the first spoken text but at the risk of losing Veronica for good.The film is a mixture of vision and story.
Many years later (20 years to be exact) and 10 years absent from his latest directorial effort (1997's "The Rain Maker"), Coppola tried to do exact same thing like he did in the past."Youth Without Youth" is interesting, yet undeniably confusing tale of Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) who is a professor of language and philosophy in early 19th century.
The film is about a once brilliantly gifted scholar, Dominik Mattei (played by Tim Roth), who appears to have wasted his life, and is now an old man, when suddenly he gets a second chance and returns to youth.
Is it because he didn't complete his life's work, a great book which was to contain a grand unifying theory on consciousness and the origins of language, or because he didn't pay enough attention to his beloved Laura?There are two main points of interest in the film for me, one relates to the allure of the situation Mattei is in and the dilemma it presents, and the other to the structure.
If you liked Tim Roth in this film I suggest you watch another movie in which he stars, The Legend of 1900 directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, which is also wonderful in a similar enigmatic way.And this review is dedicated to Claire, who is the first rose..
Thank you, Mr. Tim Roth for another great performance.The screenplay is poetic not less than any other quality in the film.This movie needs a deep viewer with some patience and a love for art, philosophy, spirituality, and science.Honestly, the film should get a higher rating, but it's not the kind that would be accessible to all kinds of audiences.
Soon, the Nazis have made him an object of "study," determined to use him as a guinea pig in their efforts to create a "master race." But that's only half the story, which extends well into the late 1960s, with Dominic holding onto his eternal youth at virtually every step of the drama.Impeccably produced, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "Youth Without Youth" is a fascinating mixture of war time drama, unrequited love story, psychological study, ancient and primordial mysticism and sci-fi fantasy.
And those places are fascinating.Tim Roth carries the film with his beautifully understated embodiment of a man trying desperately to understand his place in the world, and Alexandra Maria Lara is heartbreaking as the loving, troubled young woman with similar issues who briefly joins him on his journey.With its enigmatic storytelling and its refusal to spell everything out in simplistic terms for a spoon-fed audience, "Youth Without Youth" risks alienating a large segment of the ticket-buying public.
"Youth Without Youth" takes a new approach to Romania, even though it stars in a supporting role Bruno Ganz (who played Jonathan Harker in Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu") and is directed by Francis Ford Coppola (who directed "Bram Stoker's Dracula").At the beginning, we meet Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), a septuagenarian Romanian polyglot in 1938.
Apparently, "YWY" author Mircea Eliade as a young man went to Calcutta to study Sanskrit and and Eastern philosophy, so it wouldn't surprise me if the events in the story mirror his own experiences.From what I read about this film, it sounds as though this was an ambitious project in the vein of some of Coppola's more famous work.
The rest is Coppola trying really hard to make some point (WWII happened sometime ago, Love or work?, languages: yes or no?), whichever it may have been it's certainly not worth watching this movie.
So much so in fact that the attempt at including World history seems forced - almost an afterthought from Coppola.As many may have read already, the saving grace of the film comes in the hunched form of a maturing Tim Roth - who wades his way though pretentious dialogue to hold 'Youth Without Youth' together.
If I were cruel, I could've interpreted this as one huge dream sequence from start to end, and you know just how cheap a narrative that would be.Youth Without Youth, based on the novel by Mircea Eliade, tells of a story of an aged linguist Dominic (Tim Roth), who is on a suicidal mission, only to have it thwarted, sort of, in advance by higher powers.
I'm not even talking about having a cohesive plot, just a clarity of narrative that informs the viewer that the director actually knows what he's dealing with.What Youth Without Youth simply tells us is that Coppola does not understand the subject he's dealing with (esoteric meanings of time and reality) nor is he capable of representing it in film.
The second half of the film takes place after the war years when the man finds a woman who looks like a young version of his deceased love (Alexandra Maria Lara).
Incredibly, she too is struck by lightning with differing results and it aids in his research on the origins of languages.The plot brings to mind two films from the mid-90s that also address people with fascinating powers: "Powder" and "Phenomenon." The latter was decent whereas the former shot for greatness and in some ways attained it.
when was the last time YOU stood on your head and looked at things upside-down?Tim Roth is truly great in this and that's a shame because the film could have been greater.It's still better than 90% of the movies I research and then watch though and none of my time was wasted.I'm hoping at some point someone will re-cut the soundtrack to the "Brief Encounter" moments (I know they are not all Rachmaninov but you see the style getting repeated later with different music).
Here, the background novella with the same name is dreamy enough, and the signature of Francis Ford Coppola has brought the scenes' progression to a hectic and often difficult-to-follow level, where even the good performance of Tim Roth (definitely in my Top10 list of distinctive actors) could not make all the events and motives understandable to me, I had to delve into the plot as a whole later on.As for other performances, there were no up to the task of Roth's, Bruno Ganz spend too little time on screen, but female characters remained incomplete to me.
It wants too hard to be heavy, and it is.Real depth in movies can be seen in the highly personal (and affected) Ingmar Bergman films, or in more peculiar attempts like "2001." Even Coppola's own "Apocalypse Now" finds a way to explore meaning, indirectly and amazingly.
The film’s running-time is divided between two interlocking stories: the first involving an old professor’s rejuvenation after being hit by a bolt of lightning (the condition also unleashes a couple of doppelgangers which, having little real point, only confounds the issue all the more!) and the second the reincarnation of an Indian mystic into a girl who also happens to be the double of the learned man’s long-lost love (the glitch is that, with each lapse into the former personality – regressing into ever more ancient forms of communication – the body of her current vessel ages!).Casting – Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara and Bruno Ganz (the latter two both from DOWNFALL [2006]) – is generally effective; also making a good impression is Alexandra Pirici appearing as a German seductress/Nazi agent (it appears that Hitler is interested in exploiting Roth’s predicament towards the proverbial creation of a new master race!), while Matt Damon (star of the director’s preceding effort, THE RAINMAKER [1997]) turns up in a rather trivial cameo.
I was not very interested in watching Youth Without Youth, despite being director Francis Ford Coppola's first film in 10 years (if we do not consider his anonymous "contribution" to the atrocious Supernova).I liked various movies from this legendary filmmaker very much...not the ones he made as a mercenary director (like Jack or Peggy Sue Got Married), but the most personal ones (like Rumble Fish or Tucker: The Man and His Dream), where he was obviously interested in the material.But the negative commentaries Youth Without Youth received made me not to be very interested in watching it, because I did not want to find another great director reduced to a mere shadow of his previous energy (like it happened to me with Oliver Stone and Alexander, Steven Spielberg and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, John Carpenter and Ghosts of Mars, and a very long etcetera).However, Youth Without Youth was released in my country, and since I had some free time and due to a schedule coincidence, I decided to watch it.Unfortunately, all the negative commentaries were right: Youth Without Youth is a confusing, hollow and terribly boring mess, and I think this is the lowest point in Coppola's career so far.The story of this movie is complicated, but not on the interesting way which challenges us to unravel the mysteries of the narrative (like it would may happen on a film directed by Jim Jarmusch), or complicated in the sense of director David Lynch's delicious style, which invites us to draw conclusions and enjoy a dream-like experience.Youth Without Youth is complicated on a horribly tedious way.Besides, this film is full of forced and arbitrary philosophical, linguistic and literary discussions.In summary, Youth Without Youth is an unbearable experience, and my recommendation is for you to stay away from it.I still cannot believe Coppola was the responsible of this mess..
I blame Coppola for all the inconsistencies that really ruined this film, right there next to the bad acting from so many I'm not even gonna bother to name, suffice to say this movie had a good idea behind it, good not brilliant, if you think this is in any way a hard to digest philosophical film then you haven't seen too many, watch any Bergman film and see if you feel the same.Good bits: A fairly interesting script, with decent directing and Tim Roth in the lead.Bad bits : Incoherence in the continuity of the story with no emphasis on some of the more important parts,seems Coppola can't decide between a cheesy love story and the pursuit of ultimate knowledge(big choice there)so he thinks he can do both at the same time, big parts in the script seem just thrown in without any reason, some really bad acting, i don't get why people in Romania speak English but write in Romanian.I suggest you watch this if you're a Tim Roth fan and want to see him in a different kind of role, otherwise no..
Tim Roth gives a solid performance (the way he takes time to regain the carriage of and begin walking like a younger man again is one of the film's highlights).
Matt Damon appears briefly as a Life reporter, and Anamaria Marinca ( 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) as a receptionist.The film takes place against the backdrop of WWII, and the Nazis are very interested in Dominic (Tim Roth), who was regressed back to half his age after being hit by lightning.
I don't know what happened to the talented director of movies like "The Godfather" trilogy and "The Conversation" but I know this: he tried hard, made a few good things but in the end the result was overshadowed by a messy and confusing plot where the dramatic suspense was more interesting than the romance told in the second half of it.The amazing Tim Roth plays an 70 year-old linguistic that after being struck by a lightning starts all of sudden to get younger and he has the chance to do all the things he wanted to do as younger including finishing a book (we never know what is the so-called work of his life).
Under his power, Veronica regresses back through the ages, each time speaking an older language, until, as she nears the origin, and his work nears completion, he realises that he can have his life's desire, but first there is a test, and a choice to be made.This fascinating film which Coppola wrote, directed and produced is well constructed and satisfying.
Beats me - and Roth too, I guess.Luminous Alexandra Maria Lara is remarkable in a challenging and thankless role (after a brief appearance at the beginning she disappears from the movie for a long time).Although I am not familiar with the novel by Mircea Eliade adapted here, I suspect two things: first, it could be interesting and make more sense than the movie; second, the adaptation suffers from what is called "the slideshow effect": all the best bits from the book glued together with little regard for pacing (which here is totally off) and clarity.
Another reason, less superficial, is that I simply like linguistics, a topic which is very much at the centre of this movie, as the main character, Dominic Matei (in a delightful performance by Tim Roth), struggles to find the origins of language and human consciousness.
He also had a troubling sympathy for extreme right wing politics.Youth Without Youth is a story about a seventy-year-old man, Professor Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), a brilliant but funbling professor in Romania in 1938 who's still grieving over a broken engagement with his lost love Laura (the protean Romanian actress Alexandra Maria Lara) forty years before and despairs of ever completing his lifelong project, a book (rather like Mr. Casaubon's "Key to All Mythologies" in George Eliot's 'Middlemarch') that traces the ultimate origin of the world's languages.
Francis Ford Coppola adapted a novella by Romanian theologian and writer Mircea Eliade: "Tânereţe fără bătreneţe şi viaţa fără de moarte" which I would translate as "Youth without ageing and life without death" but has been published under the name the film has now.The film's plot in short: A romanian Orientalism-professor has lost the love of his life when he was still young and lives as an old man now in fear that he wouldn't be able to finish his one great book about the origins of language and the birth of consciousness (a feeling we all know oh too well, don't we?
Suddenly the movie had a plot.So far so good.It was obvious that this was a fiction about paranormal stuff, so I could even live with the "superpowers" of the main character Dominic(Roth).Then he meets that girl Veronika, who looks like his old flame Laura, and it gets even more interesting.You start asking yourself where is this gonna lead us?
After ten years, acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather") returns with "Youth Without Youth," a story set in the 1930s in Romania.Professor Dominic (Tim Roth) is in his seventies and realizes that he has no one in his life, so he decides to end it.