Review of Love and Death (1975) by Adam L — 20 Jan 2010

The last of Woody's "early, funny" films is easily the best, brightest and funniest of the bunch. Diane Keaton is hilarious, here again opposite Allen as they play a Russian couple bent on assassinating Napoleon.

LOVE AND DEATH signifies itself as a film of transition for Allen, who for the first time openly declares his love for foreign art films, particularly those of Ingmar Bergman, whose PERSONA and THE SEVENTH SEAL are both visually referenced during LOVE AND DEATH.

The film keeps up with the joke-a-minute pace set by BANANAS and SLEEPER, but here Allen's dialogue shines with a sharpened wit and zeal, the humor often waltzing down intellectual, philosophical and romantic avenues where prior films tended to lean towards the more purely screwball.

Make no mistake, LOVE AND DEATH is pure comedy: it is irreverent, goofy and not to be taken seriously, except as a comedic master's showpiece. Visually, LOVE AND DEATH is often quite lovely to look at - again, the European arthouse influence at play.

Ultimately, LOVE AND DEATH showed that Allen the comedian was even more of an intellectual than was hinted at in his earlier works, and line-for-line it's arguably the most straight-up hilarious film of his career.