Review of Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019) by Dawdlingpoet — 27 Nov 2021

This documentary features a rather no-nonsense, apathetic style of narration. Its somewhat traditional in style, with lots of photos of the Greek scenery, where most of the time covered in this film centered on.

It has a wistful, nostalgic sense to itself - of course it does, its looking back at around 1960. I admit I'm not especially familiar with Leonard Cohen, so the story was new to me but I watched it, as I saw it recommended elsewhere and the idea of seeing a documentary set in Greece at that time appealed to me.

Its a somewhat calm and sedate watch, which may mean that you'd find it boring but personally, I quite liked the sort of hazy, wistful sense the floaty music in the background emphasised. I watched it at night and I wouldn't say it was the sort of film that I had to be constantly concentrating on the whole time, in order to (if roughly) follow it, so thats a definite plus.

I did feel it slightly lost its way, so to speak, in the 2nd half, in as much as the timeline became a little unclear but for what it is, its not a bad watch - its a reasonable one, although of course to get the most from it then it helps if your familiar with Leonard Cohen's music etc.

I would recommend this, to anyone who finds the subject matter intriguing. Its not exactly a greatly engrossing watch for the duration but its certainly interesting enough and is an ok watch.