Youth Without Youth

Francis Coppola, following The Rainmaker (thanks, Marco, for pointing out my error) did not direct a film for ten years. He came back in 2007 with Youth Without Youth, a film set in Romania, based on the writing of Mircea Eliade. It is a sometimes intriguing, sometimes impenetrable film, highlighted by lovely photography by Mihai Malaimare Jr.

The film stars Tim Roth as a professor of linguistics who has spent his whole career working on a book about the origins of language and human consciousness. The opening scenes are not very clear--a second viewing might clear some things up--but it appears that he was in love with a woman but lost her, and has regarded himself as a failure. At age 70 he is starting to crack up, and intends to kill himself. Then he is struck by lightning.

He wakes up in a hospital, unable to see or speak, but gradually he heals, and much to the amazement of his doctors, has gotten younger. He now appears half his age, and also seems to have powers. He can learn languages with ease, and communicates with another identity who is aware of his powers. Since this is Romania in the late 30s, the Nazis take interest, and there is some cloak and dagger stuff.

I was expecting this film to be more focused on World War II, but it ends up going by in a montage of newspaper headlines. Instead, the film then becomes a tale involving a woman that Roth meets in Switzerland. She, too, is struck by lightning, and speaks in Sanskrit, saying she is an Indian woman thousands of years old. She is played by Alexandra Maria Lara, who also plays Roth's earlier love.

The two form a relationship, and Lara regresses back into time, speaking languages long disappeared. It's interesting academically, and the love story between the two eventually gains some warmth, but it's much more of an intellectual exercise than anything else. As with Rumble Fish, nearly twenty-five years earlier, Coppola explores the issue that we are all "running out of time."

This film is not for casual viewing, and requires undivided attention. I probably didn't do it any favors by stopping it often to check out the baseball playoffs, which made it seem longer than its two hour, six minute running time. It isn't a bad film by any means, but calls for work by the viewer to fully appreciate it.