Youth Without Youth **** (2007, Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz) – Classic Movie Review 4736

Writer-director Francis Ford Coppola’s beautiful 2007 film of Romanian author Mircea Eliade’s surreal novella is a melancholy but humorous fantasy mystery romance drama, taking the viewer on a trip through space, time and identity. It stars Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, and Bruno Ganz.

Coppola says it was one of his five best experiences making a film: ‘I was very pleased with it, and of course I was working with my longtime collaborator Walter Murch [as film editor]. And I think the film is really beautiful in the way it looks and was edited and the music and everything.’

He made the film as a meditation on time and on consciousness, a ‘changing tapestry of illusion,’ but he agrees that the film is also a love story and a mystery.

It is his first film in ten years since 1997’s The Rainmaker. The music is composed by Grammy Award-winning Argentinan classical composer Osvaldo Golijov, and it is shot by Mihai Malaimare Jr and designed by Calin Papura.

It scraped along to take $2.6 million at the box office, only $239,495 of that in the US. You would have thought the director and the film deserves more respect and interest.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4736

Link to home page for more reviews derekwinnert.com