Crazy in love

>> Francis Ford Coppola returns with the nutso metaphysical romance Youth Without Youth

by MARK SLUTSKY

After the artistic and commercial fiascos (Jack, John Grisham’s The Rainmaker), the dream projects in endless development (Megalopolis) and the wine (Francis Coppola Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005), Francis Ford Coppola has finally directed a new film that might reasonably stand as a personal, artistic statement, and it’s completely bonkers. Youth Without Youth, based on a novella by Romanian religious history professor, author, and it should be said, alleged crypto-fascist Mircea Eliade, is obviously a labour of love. But it’s also almost perversely nonsensical.

The movie opens in Romania, 1938. Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) is a despairing 70-year-old academic, fearful that he will never complete his masterpiece, and yearning for the lost love of his youth (Alexandra Maria Lara of Downfall and Control). He sets out to Bucharest to kill himself far from home, but almost as soon as he arrives, he’s hit by lightning.

The accident, though, turns out to have a salutary effect as, under the care of his doctor (Bruno Ganz), Roth actually begins to grow younger. Not only that, but his faculty for languages increases and his intellect skyrockets. This makes him an object of interest to the Nazis, and he flees to Switzerland; later, he encounters a young woman (Lara), who bears a remarkable resemblance to the love of his youth. She too, suffers an accident and begins speaking in ancient languages, under an alternate personality who identifies herself as an ancient mystic disciple named “Rupini.”

They hang out, fall in love, speak ancient Egyptian together, ponder reincarnation. Tim Roth has lots of conversations with himself. There’s a lot of talk about language and metaphysics and consciousness. Everyone’s having a fine old time, but what they’re actually going on about, I frankly couldn’t tell you.

This movie is kind of crazy. It’s gorgeous—the title sequence is beautiful and the cinematography, by the young Mihai Malaimare, Jr., is lovely. It has a stately, old-fashioned look. The actors, especially Roth, are sensitive and sympathetic. The setting is dramatic and atmospheric. And yet, if there’s a plot, or an argument, or some sort of thesis here to follow, it’s impossible to find.

Coppola is making films with passion again, and he still has plenty of visual ideas–and that’s terrific. Now he just has to make one that isn’t totally nutso.

Youth Without Youth
opens this Friday, Jan. 18