Review of Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) by Ryan H — 28 Mar 2010

An absolutely perfect film. It's a drama, a comedy, a tragedy. I love how the idea behind the film is spoken by the most pompous and pretentious character in the movie. We hear spoken a few times that comedy is tragedy plus time.

Perhaps these characters will look back on their lives one day and laugh at the mistakes that lead up to the moment that almost (or did) destroy them. Martin Landau is all that is evil: you love him, you want to see him get away with everything, but everything he has done is wrong.

Just like sin, if we didn't like it, why would we do it? On the other hand, Woody Allen is basically good. He's in a loveless marriage and he seems like he's holding on just in case if they can turn it around, or maybe he's scared of being alone like his sister.

The point is, no one can really blame him for falling for another woman. So now the audience sits back and watches how the results of the actions of both characters. The brilliant part is we are following two separate story lines from two men that we haven't seen meet each other, and yet were fascinated by both and it never feels disjointed.

Allen seems to talk about God in this one quite a bit more than the others I have seen, and not necessarily just to say He doesn't exist. Instead, he feels like God is fading away from our lives, perhaps he's dead (or just blind).

Whatever it is, part of the tragedy is that in real life, evil is not always punished, and good is not always rewarded. If you want that, go see a Hollywood film.