Review of Manhattan (1979) by Lasttimeisaw — 27 Nov 2012

The opening shots of MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011, 6/10) can easily hark back to this Black & White paean to New York made more than three decades age, with the same deployment of representative landmarks (although I have yet set my foot on America).

The storyline may suit perfectly as a prophesy for Allen his own private life decades later, to which I am trying my best shun away since the independence of the film should be irrelevant of the creator's personal idiosyncrasy, which is a hard call in this case.

It's a petit bourgeois melodrama, could be a sequel of ANNE HALL (1977, 9/10), there is still Allen and Keaton, and Allen is still a neurotic and nagging cipher, but Keaton here is not a winning scatterbrain, instead being characterized as a high-strung lost cause, which in a sense, these two are very much alike, pretending sophisticate as a charade to conceal their immature rationality.

Words are Allen's strongest weapon, so albeit being a bit piqued by the characters (pretentiousness, stupidity and high-brow condescending), the script itself has its shrewdness and comedic tones will suffice to launch an ambiguous attachment towards our commonplace life.