I first saw this film in 1979 at a revival house and it turned me from a film lover to a film fanatic. If someone said to me at that time that I could make a feature film on any subject I wanted, I've no doubt that I too would have tried to cram the story of the 20th century into two hours. I too would have gone zaza with the camera, making it as obtrusive as hell but to the effect of bringing the audience to giddying heights of emotion. I too, would have made it a great love story as seen from the perspective of fate built up from generations. I doubt I could achieve what Lelouch achieved though, because he is a supreme story-teller. Just look at what he does in one scene where the parents of our heroine meet for the first time on a train. There is no spoken dialogue, but they communicate in resonant volumes just with their eyes.
Twenty-three years later, some cracks have worn through for me. I cringe every so often at the self-indulgence of the two romantic leads, particularly of our heroine, played exquisitely by Marthe Keller. There's a wonderful almost throwaway line when this super-affluent woman's father tells her she should try strolling through a hospital for just five minutes every day. It's sound advice, especially for someone so sorely lacking in the perspective of human angst. Also, sometimes it seems that the film's political ambitions are stretching through the seams since, with so little time to tell the story, people and positions get overblown. But overall I forgive the film these indulgences since it is the love story that keeps us grounded. Every so often our two lovers cross paths yet do not know what destiny is awaiting them. I can't imagine a single soul watching this not bursting a little with glee as the invisible hands of fate set up the moment when these two lovers inevitably do find one another.
SPOILER ALERT!
Alas, in the DVD version, that moment of magic has been spoiled. Just as Cupid's arrow softly strikes their unsuspecting consciousness, we are suddenly catapulted into another movie. I can only describe this movie as something like Zardoz-meets-The Pepsi Generation-meets-Masters and Johnson. Really, no words can describe it. Apparently, thirty years ago Claude Lelouch shot a sixteen-minute science-fiction segment (obviously under the influence of saccharin-laced LSD) to be edited into the last scene in the film. Either brighter minds prevailed or a moment of sanity took hold for Lelouch because that scene never made it to the final film. It should have been burned, but I guess it was tossed into some vault. It has now been unleashed and re-edited into the film, spoiling the subtly divine ending, and driving its audience to raid their medicine cabinets for massive doses of Tylenol. The scene simply has no business being there. It's dumb, painfully [!] dated visually, and even more ridiculous now than it was thirty years ago since its story assumes that by the new century (that's us), most humans will be giving birth to monsters. Jerry Springer and American Idol aside, Lelouch can't literally warrant a `See? Told you so!', and from the way it's illustrated in this film, such a the theory won't even hold water in the next millennium unless Edith Head's family line merges with that of Star Trek's art department. All I can say is see this movie with someone you love and near the end of the film when the lovers sit down in the plane and mention `three sugars', turn the movie off!
Twenty-three years later, some cracks have worn through for me. I cringe every so often at the self-indulgence of the two romantic leads, particularly of our heroine, played exquisitely by Marthe Keller. There's a wonderful almost throwaway line when this super-affluent woman's father tells her she should try strolling through a hospital for just five minutes every day. It's sound advice, especially for someone so sorely lacking in the perspective of human angst. Also, sometimes it seems that the film's political ambitions are stretching through the seams since, with so little time to tell the story, people and positions get overblown. But overall I forgive the film these indulgences since it is the love story that keeps us grounded. Every so often our two lovers cross paths yet do not know what destiny is awaiting them. I can't imagine a single soul watching this not bursting a little with glee as the invisible hands of fate set up the moment when these two lovers inevitably do find one another.
SPOILER ALERT!
Alas, in the DVD version, that moment of magic has been spoiled. Just as Cupid's arrow softly strikes their unsuspecting consciousness, we are suddenly catapulted into another movie. I can only describe this movie as something like Zardoz-meets-The Pepsi Generation-meets-Masters and Johnson. Really, no words can describe it. Apparently, thirty years ago Claude Lelouch shot a sixteen-minute science-fiction segment (obviously under the influence of saccharin-laced LSD) to be edited into the last scene in the film. Either brighter minds prevailed or a moment of sanity took hold for Lelouch because that scene never made it to the final film. It should have been burned, but I guess it was tossed into some vault. It has now been unleashed and re-edited into the film, spoiling the subtly divine ending, and driving its audience to raid their medicine cabinets for massive doses of Tylenol. The scene simply has no business being there. It's dumb, painfully [!] dated visually, and even more ridiculous now than it was thirty years ago since its story assumes that by the new century (that's us), most humans will be giving birth to monsters. Jerry Springer and American Idol aside, Lelouch can't literally warrant a `See? Told you so!', and from the way it's illustrated in this film, such a the theory won't even hold water in the next millennium unless Edith Head's family line merges with that of Star Trek's art department. All I can say is see this movie with someone you love and near the end of the film when the lovers sit down in the plane and mention `three sugars', turn the movie off!