Love and Death

Love and Death (1975) is set in nineteenth century Russia and mocks every convention of Russian literature. Boris is a cowardly peasant. When Napoleon invades he is conscripted and declared a hero by accident. He is in love with his cousin Sonja, who does not take him seriously, though they eventually marry. Then they plan to assassinate Napoleon. The film imitates the tone and subjects of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky directly: long moral arguments, conversations about death, provincial boredom. Characters discuss existence in the middle of a field and the conversation collapses into nonsense. The Bergman references are open; the figure of death comes straight out of The Seventh Seal. The music is taken from Prokofiev and completes the film's pretence of seriousness. It was shot in Hungary and France, with real army units used in the battle scenes. Allen made it immediately before Annie Hall, and it is among the last works of his pure comedy period; after it his films turned more serious. The joke density is very high; some lines carry two jokes in one sentence. You will laugh without having read the Russian novels, and twice as much if you have. It runs 85 minutes. Good for: parody, early Allen, and literary reference. Less good for: the humour is verbal and fast; anyone wanting visual comedy will find little.