<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Romance in a Time Capsule
Review: From the opening shot, in black and white with titles, at the turn of the 20th Century, showing a cinematographer shooting with a windup camera on a tripod, (meeting and courting the grandmother of our soon to be female lead, Martha Keller) to the final color image 75 years later, we're enchanted watching through three generations as our two hope-to-God will-be-lovers, are being prepared through history, war, and the process of failing, overcoming, succeeding, and living through those years (1899 to 1975) to eventually, hopefully become the two mature adults who will someday meet, when they will be ready for each other. The filmmaking itself changes to conform with movie making history. When sound quickly follows, it follows in our film; in the forties, we have color, and on and on. One of the joys of rewatching this film is to notice how our peoples' paths cross, unbeknownst to them, throughout the film. You're like a kid, pulling for them to meet. I have seen this film 20 times and it's always brand new. This was Claude LeLouche's movie after "A Man and a Woman" and I'm always surprised most people have never even heard of it. It's a wonderful trip and my favorite film of all time. I was a working actress at the time I first saw it and if I could have, I'd have happily carried cables or props on any Claude LeLouche set. See it, by all means, and pretend you're going to see a 3 star movie so you won't be disappointed -- you know how THAT goes. I'm happy to share it with you. Post Script added after I actually viewed the DVD -- they've included an ending different from anything I've ever seen before, and you know I've seen it 20 times. Suddenly we're in some futuristic Stanley Kubrick/Buck Rogers world which they've apparently extropolated from an earlier scene with a futurist. It's long and tedious, possibly 5 minutes long, before it finally gets back to the ending with which I'm familiar. So, 5 stars with the old ending; only 3 as they're playing it out now. Sorry about that.
Rating:
Summary: "And now, my love" - a film of special beuty
Review: I saw this movie, for the first time, a few weeks ago. It is an old French film - from 1974. The director, a great French director: Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman). The name of the American Video Tape is "And now, my love". In French the name is "Toute une vie" - it means "A whole life". It is very long (141 minutes) but it is a film of special beauty. I am sure that I need watching it several times to understand it properly. It starts at the beginning of the 1900, just before the First World War, as a black and white silent film. It continues through more than half a century and the cinematographic technique develops with the years (according with cinema history). The film ends in 1974 (the time it was filmed). It is focused in France. While going over the past century until 1974, the film touches the most terrible things that happened. Wars. Jewish extermination attempt. War survivors fight for survival. Emptiness of Western post war generation, a generation born with a gold tea spoon in its mouth. A very bored generation. With free sex and no love. But at the end this generation is shown as capable of love and finding itself. It is an optimistic and fantastic film. ...
Rating:
Summary: And I think the ending is still charming!
Review: I, too, had only seen the American "video" version (not sure what version that would be, as I understand there to be more than "two" versions of this film) and was all jazzed by the final meeting in the airplane ending. But let me say that I think the "future" ending that everyone is all riled up about is quite charming and harmless. I mean, the set design is most impressive and there must be a cast of hundreds. And the music by Francis Lai is most appropriate: a show-y, operatic, future opus played out in its entirety without dialog.
So, vote one viewer here who thinks the "future" ending is darn cool and a welcome "addition" (though, again, I am not sure that this is even an "addition", but part of the original French version, which should be preferred).
Rating:
Summary: And I think the ending is still charming!
Review: I, too, had only seen the American "video" version (not sure what version that would be, as I understand there to be more than "two" versions of this film) and was all jazzed by the final meeting in the airplane ending. But let me say that I think the "future" ending that everyone is all riled up about is quite charming and harmless. I mean, the set design is most impressive and there must be a cast of hundreds. And the music by Francis Lai is most appropriate: a show-y, operatic, future opus played out in its entirety without dialog.
So, vote one viewer here who thinks the "future" ending is darn cool and a welcome "addition" (though, again, I am not sure that this is even an "addition", but part of the original French version, which should be preferred).
Rating: 
Summary: DVD Version Disappointment!
Review: My absolute all-time favorite film, which I've watched countless times over the last 20 years (taped from a televised version from the Bravo channel). Nothing could surpass the story of the inevitable meeting of the two primary characters of the film. And when they finally do meet - it has been a moment that has always given me the cold chills (in a good way). With that said, this new DVD release is a thorough disappointment. Claude Lelouch, with all his lifetime of experience of film making has inexplicably chosen to restore nearly 20 minutes of footage that was edited out of the version that was generally released on video tape years ago. Thus making this current DVD version an over-bloated affair, ending in a mind-numbing 10 minute "life-in-the-future-unless-we-do-something-about-it-now" sequence. Sure, you can give some allowances that this film was a product of its time (originally released in 1974). But for Lelouch to self-indulgently insert back footage that completely destroys the momentum of what should be that "cold-chill" scene - well, I think I've said enough. Suffice it to say, a good film editor is worth his or her weight in gold. Other "restored" scenes are fairly short, and don't really detract from the film; however the new English subtitles supplied with this release are questionable. So, if you plan to buy this version (since the old video tape version has not been available for years!), make sure you know French, turn the subtitles off, and be ready to hit the fast forward button at the very end of the film.
Rating:
Summary: DVD Version Disappointment!
Review: My absolute all-time favorite film, which I've watched countless times over the last 20 years (taped from a televised version from the Bravo channel). Nothing could surpass the story of the inevitable meeting of the two primary characters of the film. And when they finally do meet - it has been a moment that has always given me the cold chills (in a good way). With that said, this new DVD release is a thorough disappointment. Claude Lelouch, with all his lifetime of experience of film making has inexplicably chosen to restore nearly 20 minutes of footage that was edited out of the version that was generally released on video tape years ago. Thus making this current DVD version an over-bloated affair, ending in a mind-numbing 10 minute "life-in-the-future-unless-we-do-something-about-it-now" sequence. Sure, you can give some allowances that this film was a product of its time (originally released in 1974). But for Lelouch to self-indulgently insert back footage that completely destroys the momentum of what should be that "cold-chill" scene - well, I think I've said enough. Suffice it to say, a good film editor is worth his or her weight in gold. Other "restored" scenes are fairly short, and don't really detract from the film; however the new English subtitles supplied with this release are questionable. So, if you plan to buy this version (since the old video tape version has not been available for years!), make sure you know French, turn the subtitles off, and be ready to hit the fast forward button at the very end of the film.
Rating:
Summary: "And now, my love" - Synopsis
Review: The first scene: a photographer and a pretty lady falling in love at first sight. The second scene: the lady giving birth to a son. The third: a letter arriving to the front - it is the First World War - and a soldier looking for the letter's addressee. He finds him. The letter is read. The reader shouts: "it is a boy!" and then a bomb falls and kills him. The forth scene: the war is over. A train brings back survivors. The lady and the boy, a few years old child, are left alone at the train station. Their beloved doesn't come back. Then they appear dressed in black and they get a medal. Then a parallel story begins: a dancer, who is having a love affaire with an officer, marries his superior, the general. She gives birth to a girl. Her husband discovers who is the girl's father and kills the dancer. A gap in time. A train appears - full of people coming back from concentration camps. HE and the photographer (remember the first scene?) are similar like two drops of water. SHE and the dancer look the same. HE is sitting in front of HER. They exchange names. They fall in love at first sight and get married. They have a baby girl. The mother is still very weak from concentration camps life. She dies while giving birth. With the appearance of that train you suddenly discover that the photographer and his wife and the dancer and her husband, the general, were Jewish. This detail was unimportant in France at the beginning of the century until the Second World War. It becomes a crucial detail with this war. The film shows that girl, Sarah, who was born after the war, growing up. Her father is very successful and becomes very rich. Every year, in her birthday party, we are told about the age of the State of Israel. The girl is given everything she wants. She is terribly spoiled - a princess. At her 17th Birthday she wants her father to bring Gilbert Becaud, the singer, to sing at her birthday party. She falls in love with him. The singer leaves her very soon; she is left with a broken heart and tries to commit suicide by crashing with her car. She survives and her father takes her to a trip around the world. The father is a person of great life experience and special wisdom. During this trip he talks a lot to her. One of those chats is dedicated to Jerusalem, the heart of all monotheistic religions and the center of much conflict. The girl appears as a typical member of the bourgeois post war generation: she doesn't find herself. She doesn't appreciate the trip. She doesn't give a dime for her father's wisdom and she is pretty nervous with him. But after the trip she starts writing. First about her roots and then about what is happening to her. About boredom of life. About search for love - she doesn't find a suitable partner; she has many love affairs and even marries. But she gets divorced a few days after marriage. At that time we are introduced to a new hero: a young boy. He has no background story because he is an orphan and he grew in public institutions. So his story starts when he is a boy - a small thief. He steals and runs away from the police but one day he is caught and goes to jail. In jail he - and we - are introduced to a group of very interesting people. This boy runs away from jail hidden in a garbage truck but while he is rushing with a stolen car he clashes with the girl that was committing suicide. He is brought back to jail. After jail, a grown up man, he starts his way in the film industry. And he becomes a man of special wisdom. He is seen fighting for survival and searching for love. He looks for a girl that sweetens her coffee with three teaspoons of sugar (as someone in jail said he must). When he likes a girl, it is the first question he asks her. But no one does. The paths of our hero and heroine cross many times during the film. But they finally meet while sitting on two adjacent seats. The airplane is on its way to New York. She obviously asks for the third teaspoon of sugar and they fall in love at first sight And he tells her how he imagines the future, how he plans to describe it in his next film: it is 2000. Children are born sick because of air pollution. Couples are allowed to have children only if they go to a special place that looks like heaven. It is a place full of couples that show much love one for the other. And our heroes appear there as one of the couples. The film ends on the airplane. Our heroes plan to meet again. Love at first sight, didn't I say it already?
Rating:
Summary: A Film Lovers Feast...
Review: Where to begin...it is a story about love at first sight where the principles do not meet until the screen credits are rolling...it goes back three generations to show who and what made these two so perfect for each other...it is a history of the development of film...there are scenes and film techinques used that were the first of their kind at the time...there is just soooo much story here...enjoy and prepare to love this film,it is a film lovers feast. Bravo Claude LeLouche!!!
<< 1 >>
| 
