Love and Death

"Love and Death" is one of my favourite Woody Allen films, right up there with "Manhattan," "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "Deconstructing Harry." Sure, the jokes are scattershot and don't always work, but when they do the film is a gut-buster. ("A tremendous amount of wheat!") Parodying everything from Russian literature to foreign films (especially those of his beloved Ingmar Bergman), it's also one of Allen's most overtly philosophical films with characters breaking into syllogisms and formal arguments at the most unlikely moments. Students of philosophy should get a kick out of it.

That said, it is accessible to just about anybody. Almost nobody does fish-out-of-water comedy as well as Woody Allen (see also "Bananas" and "Sleeper"), and Diane Keaton shines as usual as the promiscuous object of his desire. And look for Jessica Harper in a small role as the cousin who rattles off a convoluted list of romantic entanglements worthy of Chekhov.

This was the last step of Allen's formative period. After this, his films would get a lot more focused.