A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

The Evaluation System Reviews by Title Reviews by Date

Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

Title: Youth WIthout Youth

Date Viewed: 1/3/08

Details:

Tim Roth

Alexandra Maria Lara

Written & directed by: Francis Ford Coppola

Score: +

The Review: Mircea Eliade is not the first name that comes to mind for fiction. If you're of a certain age, this Russian philosopher is more likely remembered from college reading in comparative religion. But his 1979 novella is the basis for the first film by Coppola in about 10 years (Grisham's Rainmaker, 1997): Youth Without Youth. It's worth watching, if a bit enigmatic.

'Tis a difficult classification: philosophical, somewhere between science fiction and fantasy, a bit of linguistics, a bit of possible supernatural, past lives, metempsychosis, a mystery wrapped in a travelogue from Romania to Switzerland to India to Malta -- all supported by some occasionally difficult and occasionally gorgeous cinematography. The title can be taken literally -- the focal event in the film is the transformation of the main character Dominic (Roth) from an aging 70 year old into the robust physiology of a 40 year old. The time is 1938 in Bucharest, the event catastrophic, and it gives Dominic some remarkable physical and cognitive abilities that he slowly comes to master. It also brings him to the attention of the advancing Nazi army.

Then there are the narrative gimmicks: a shadow doppel-Dominic who appears often as informant, conversationalist or warning; a lost love (Lara) who seems to reappear in a narrative lull. Time is fluid: linear, if occasionally gapped. It's intriguing to follow Dominic as he witnesses the events of the 20th century.

Jarring cameo by Matt Damon; otherwise mostly unknown actors.

(3-Jan-08)

Back to the chronological list of reviews