Francis Ford Coppola and "Youth Without Youth"

By Dennis Harvey

It’s hard to think of another filmmaker of Francis Ford Coppola’s stature and history who’s been so consistently wedded to the Hollywood mainstream — and so resistant to it.

On the one hand, there’s the director of such celebrated classics as the first two “Godfathers” and “Apocalypse Now;” of pure populist entertainments like “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

On the other, there’s the guy who used every mainstream success as leverage to make eccentric, uncommercial personal projects. Who struggled to sustain the independent ideal of American Zoetrope, his own production company/studio. Who’s had a producing hand in adventuresome movies by everyone from George Lucas (his first feature) to Kurosawa, Wim Wenders, and Norman Mailer. Who didn’t want to do the original “Godfather” or its sequels; who engineered a U.S. theatrical tour (with live orchestra) for Abel Gance’s restored 1927 silent epic “Napoleon.” Not to mention his myriad other ventures in publishing, winemaking, and so forth. The operatic grandeur of his best-remembered films — and perhaps even his own larger-than-lifestyle — is what most fans probably associate with Coppola, suggesting a consistency of method and project selection. But in truth, he’s been all over the map, and then some. That wild-card factor is only underlined by Francis Ford Coppola’s first directorial exercise in a full decade: “Youth Without Youth,” no doubt the strangest present you’ll find under your cinematic Christmas tree this season.

Based on a story by late Romanian Mircea Eliade (who’s better known for his works on the history of religion than for his fiction), it stars Tim Roth as Domenic Matei, a philosophy professor at the twilight of his life. Feeling he has nothing left to live for, he goes to Bucharest to kill himself away from the gaze of students and colleagues.

Before that can be accomplished, however, a tremendous bolt of lighting strikes him — but rather than kill him, it puts him in a “larval state.” Once the crispy burnt skin falls off after weeks of slowly regained speech and mobility, he miraculously appears at least 30 years younger — in the prime of his manhood. As if that isn’t enough, he gains superhuman intellectual abilities, processing and retaining knowledge at an extraordinary level. He can “read” an entire book by simply holding it in his hands. Despite attempts by his fascinated physician Stanciulescu (Bruno Ganz) to protect him, Matei soon attracts unwanted attention. His mysterious powers are coveted by various governments who view him as a potential “secret weapon” — or at least something to be studied. This being the late 1930s, that includes the Nazis, whose pursuit grows downright threatening. Matei is forced into years of hiding, in one guise meeting Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara, who played secretary to Ganz’s Hitler in “Downfall”), a young woman who’s the very image of Laura, the great lost love of his life. She also seems to be the reincarnation of a 7th century Nepalese Buddhist nun

topics: filmmakers

12.13.2007