Great filmmakers who find themselves trapped in a creative morass sometimes need to break free via a crazy, anarchic, art-damaged labor of love. In that spirit, think of Youth Without Youth, Francis Ford Coppola's first new movie in ten years, as the jump-start equivalent of Steven Soderbergh's goofy Richard Lester tribute, Schizopolis. Both films are fascinatingly flawed, borderline incomprehensible, and deeply, almost embarrassingly personal. But Soderbergh's nutty experiment paved the way for Out of Sight and the various triumphs that followed; with any luck, Coppola's dose of insanity will prove similarly rejuvenating.
It's probably no coincidence that rejuvenation is Youth Without Youth's very explicit theme. Adapted from a novella by the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade, the film stars Tim Roth, initially in heavy makeup, as Dominic Matei, an elderly, despondent linguistics professor on the verge of committing suicide. A provident bolt of lightning nearly does the job for him — but not only does Matei survive, he thrives, emerging from the hospital looking a good thirty years younger and endowed with nifty superpowers, including the ability to absorb the contents of any book merely by passing his no-longer-withered hand over its cover. The prof quickly resumes his lifelong research into the origin of human language, eventually aided by a beautiful woman (Alexandra Maria Lara) who, after also being struck by lightning (I am not making this up), begins speaking in progressively more ancient tongues — and growing progressively older.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter this picture seeking narrative coherence.
But if you're in the mood for a visually stunning, batshit-loco jaunt into Eastern European mysticism, you could do considerably worse. Youth Without Youth isn't perhaps quite as wildly expressionistic as Coppola's Dracula, but no opportunity for chiaroscuro lighting or canted angles is overlooked; every shot has a glossy, retro-luscious texture designed to dazzle the unsuspecting retina. And while the script is chockablock with pretentious pseudobabble, Roth and a bevy of dubbed Romanian thesps (including Anamaria Marinca, star of the Cannes prizewinner 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days) do a remarkable job of selling each new ludicrous development. Does the movie "work," in any classical sense? Not really, no. But it's something to behold all the same. — Mike D'Angelo
