It may be easy to deride him for his overly prolific career that results in his fair share of dismal failures, but I do think Woody Allen is one of the most extraordinary filmmakers of all time. To remind of his true genius, I’ve decided to do a retrospective on the decade I believe represents Allen at his best, the 1970s. This was the decade of arguably his greatest film (whether you consider that to be Manhattan or Annie Hall) is up for debate. However, it is also the decade that is home to what I consider, without the shadow of a doubt, to be his funniest film. Love and Death is a film that had me laughing like an absolute lunatic, and reminds us that underneath some very meaningful and melancholic films, Allen is a true comedian at heart more than anything else, and nowhere are his abilities as an influential comedic voice better shown than in Love and Death.

Love and Death is a pastiche of a genre I have grown to despise with a dismal intensity – the Russian romantic epic. In Love and Death, Allen satirizes these kinds of stories without being parodic, and manages to capture the zeitgeist of the post-revolution Russian mentality with such brilliance and ease, it becomes almost as good as the works that it is satirizing. Allen plays Boris Grushenko, a deep and thoughtful Russian scholar who is in love with his cousin, Sonja (played gloriously by the ever-charming and utterly iconic Diane Keaton). Russia is under threat by Napoleon Bonaparte, and it is up to Boris and Sonja to bring him down so that they may not have to live with the French invading their country. Along the way, Boris and Sonja partake in incredibly deep philosophical discussions, mainly about the two factors of the title – love and death.

There is very little doubt that Woody Allen is one of the greatest screenwriters of all time, and he has become an auteur in his directorial vision, even if he does tend to occasionally overstep his mark when attempting to play in the sandboxes of other genres. Yet, the one thing about the films he made in the 1970s is that they showed how he is also a great actor. Love and Death is not Allen’s best performance, but it is certainly amongst his most remarkable screen roles, and it reminds us that despite his endless supply of “Woody Allen surrogates” that have populated his films for the better part of the last two decades, there is no one more entertaining and brilliant this these kinds of nebbish, neurotic philosophical deviants as Allen. It takes a film like Love and Death to remind us that Allen possesses a unique screen charisma – and no matter how much we praise him as a writer and director first, we can’t move past the fact that he is also an incredibly talented actor. It can sometimes become distracting to his roots as a comedian when we consider his more prestigious status as an auteur, but anyone who doubts Allen’s gravitas as an actor needs to see Love and Death (and basically any of his films made in the 1970s)

We can’t talk about Woody Allen without talking about Diane Keaton, who was (and always will be), the performer that brought out the very best in Woody Allen. She will always be a part of the history books of cinema because of Annie Hall, but each and every one of her collaborations with Allen are absolutely magnificent. Love and Death is one of Keaton’s most interesting performances, because it affords her the chance to rise to Allen’s philosophical level, and rather than being the wiseguy, savoire faire foil to Allen’s neuroses and rants, she often outdoes Allen here, which is quite a feat considering Love and Death is built almost entirely out of Allen transporting his paranoid social skirmishes to rural Russia (it actually serves to be a lot more perfect that one would expect). Keaton and Allen were a match made in cinematic heaven, and hopefully he can work out a role for her in an upcoming film, because it has been far too long since Keaton has been under the careful direction of the man who made her career, and who she helped gain his status as one of the true greats of American (and world) cinema.

Love and Death is a film that can’t have too much said about it (hence why this is one of my shorter reviews), because it is a very straightforward film, and thematically it doesn’t serve too much purpose other than being a Woody Allen film (with all the neurotic trimmings) being set in a very unorthodox and strange place. It also serves to be a satire on Russian literature – and I have to say that Love and Death manages to be one of the most authentically brilliant pieces of satire I have ever seen – Allen clearly knew what he wanted to do, and had a wide knowledge of everything that he wanted to say. There are a plethora of jokes that may go over audiences heads if they aren’t entirely knowledgeable on Russian literature – and the true brilliance lies in the subversive humor that exists within this film – the high-brow social commentary existing alongside the bawdy sexual humor. It is absolutely astounding how Allen constructs such a perfectly-crafted homage to a section of literature that may be difficult to understand, but in Allen’s hands, he just makes it work.

I’ve said this several times, but Love and Death is in the pantheon of the funniest films I have ever seen (and with the exception of Duck Soup and Some Like It Hot, it may be the funniest film I have ever seen) – and that is mainly because Allen inserts a deeply profound sense of outrageous comedy into this film – there are so many moments in this film, whether it is a piece of dialogue or a sight gag – that left me gasping for air. Allen was in this element here, imbuing this very traditional love story, peppered with philosophical discussions, with some of the most unbelievably odd moments of sheer comedic genius. If you haven’t watched Love and Death, you are missing out on one of the true pieces of comedic gold.

I loved Love and Death because it is a film that knew what it wanted to achieve, and it managed to do it perfectly. Woody Allen is a genius, and even if some of his films are misses, they are always entertaining. Love and Death may lack the transcendent beauty of Manhattan, or the keen awareness of human nature that Annie Hall had, but it certainly has its own unique merits. It is an unbelievably funny film, and I highly suggest everyone seeks it out. It really is a special film.