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Love and Death
Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe production ; produced by Charles H. Joffe ; written and directed by Woody Allen
Santa Monica, CA : MGM Home Entertainment, c2000.
AV English 791.4372 LOV -[ART]
Available at EPPL only

I never fail to cry at Woody Allen movies; cry from too much laughter, that is. With “Annie Hall”, it was considered his best cinematic work and helped create a romantic landscape that exudes the classical New York style. It also helped to initiate the wonderful collaboration between Allen and Diane Keaton. Taking on modern love and lovers, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” presented a hilarious plot that rings true with the current generation of “mobile relationships”. With “Love and Death”, which was filmed before “Annie Hall”, it succeeds in translating the philosophical debate over what exactly love and death are, in Allen’s own unique style.

With a Russian landscape setting, Allen plays Boris Grushenko, a bespectacled Mama’s boy with an obsession with death that begins after a surreal dream of coffins and waiters. The odd duck in a family with the typical brash and brave brothers, Boris is happy with his aimless musings and wanderings in the forest grounds. The only person he can connect with is Sonja, his cousin, who is equally well-versed in philosophical debates, e.g. “Sonja: But judgment of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstract and empirical concept, such as being, or to be, or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.
Boris: Yes, I’ve said that many times.” Unsurprisingly, Boris is heavily infatuated with the lovely Sonja. But alas, it is doomed an unrequited love when Sonja chooses to marry a herring tradesman to spite Boris’s brother.

When war arrives at Russia’s doorstep, Boris is forced to join the army as an unwilling and terrible soldier. Through a series of mishaps, he becomes an accidental war hero and comes back home where he tries again to court Sonja. However, driven by the futility and emptiness of her marriage, Sonja has resorted to several extramarital affairs and is not ashamed to admit it, e.g.
“Sonja: For the past weeks, I’ve visited Seretski in his room
Boris: Why? What’s in his room? Oh…
Sonja: And before Seretski, Aleksei, and before Aleksei, Alegorian, and before Alegorian, Asimov, and…
Boris: Okay!
Sonja: Wait, I’m still on the A’s.
Boris: How many lovers do you have?
Sonja: In the mid-town area?”

Through much hilarity and misinterpretation, Boris and Sonja somehow come together in marital bliss. And in order to preserve their marital happiness, this unlikely couple arrive at a most astonishing conclusion – assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte! With their clumsy antics and wild impersonations, will this scheming duo achieve their aim and be enlightened on love and death at the same time?

“Love and Death” is laden with Allen’s inimitable personality and witty scriptwriting. Though set with many Russian influences and culture, there’s still a heavy tinge of New York flavour that Allen likes to add, e.g. a vendor with a New York accent and attired as if at a ballpark remarks, “Hey, you got anything smaller? I just started!”

Characters with flaws and neurosis add on dimensionality to their development, which seem to be a trademark in Allen’s films, e.g. Javier Bardem’s Juan Antonio in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and Allen’s Alvy Singer in “Annie Hall”. In the end, you find yourself wanting to know more about these characters, complicated and crazy as they are. If ever you are looking for an afternoon delight of laughter and thoughtful philosophizing, then look no further than the gem that is “Love and Death”.

By Elizabeth Lee San Bao, National Library Board

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