Love is something we all experience, but yet rarely find ourselves able to explain. It’s a universal sensation, albeit one that has baffled and confused everyone from ancient philosophers to the average person walking down the street. However, this hasn’t stopped many terrific filmmakers from staking their claim and providing their own interpretation on the origins, meaning and importance of love, whether as a psychological and emotional experience, or merely just the root cause of a lot of our behaviour. It’s also the foundation for Three Ages, the feature-length directorial debut of Buster Keaton, who finally leaps helming a film, which he does alongside close friend and collaborator Edward F. Cline, with whom he weaves a terrific little yarn about love and its storied history. Set in three different eras – namely the Stone Age, Roman empire and the contemporary period – the film follows a down-on-his-luck young man who yearns for romance, which only becomes more intense when he meets a beguiling young woman with whom he falls deeply in love, only to have his attempts at courting her squandered by a brute who has the same intentions, but half the tact, leading our hero to take matters into his own hands, in the hopes of proving that love conquers all, even in the most awkward and challenging of scenarios. A wonderfully offbeat and outrageously funny comedy that once again showcases Keaton’s skills as a director and performer in equal measure, Three Ages is a wholeheartedly delightful romp that proves to be quite a change of pace for the esteemed filmmaker, allowing him the opportunity to do something quite different, but still maintaining the same level of complexity that usually drove a lot of his films and made him such a fascinating artist.

There are quite a few ways in which Three Ages is radically different to a lot of what Keaton did in his subsequent directorial outings. Primarily, we find that the film is defined mostly by its structure, which is somewhat unique, at least in comparison to his later films. Modelled after D.W. Griffith’s silent era epic Intolerance, in which interweaving vignettes plunge us into the past in an effort to show the way hatred and intolerance has been defined in different periods, the film takes a similar approach in terms of its structure – it consists of three short stories that mostly stand independently (done as a measure to allow the filmmakers to divide it into three short films should the feature-length version not perform to expectations, a common technique in anthology films), and follow the trials and tribulations of Keaton’s character as he attempts to romance a young woman, with all of his efforts ruined by the brutish competitor who seems to have far too many tricks up his sleeve. The precise setting of each episode is also closely aligned with Griffith’s film, insofar as it compares the prehistoric world with antiquity, as well as the contemporary era, in an effort to show how little our approach to love has changed. Whether it was designed to be a response to Intolerance, or merely an attempt to replicate its unique structure, Three Ages is a wonderfully offbeat examination of deeper, more profound themes, each one tailored to a particular set of ideas that ultimately evoke a deep and fascinating conversation on themes far more complex than we may initially realise, and which Keaton and Cline relish in evoking throughout this film, which only becomes stronger and more engaging as a result of this unique approach to exploring something quite ambigious, but worth discussing in as much detail as possible.

Yet, when it comes to a film with as strong a thesis statement as this one, and where its intentions are outlined so clearly and in such vivid detail, it does beg us to ask: Does it answer its own question? Whether or not Three Ages is viewed as a particularly effective deconstruction of love and its origins, as well as the way it has been explored throughout the years is actually not all that important, since the core themes are what draws us to this film, as well as how Keaton and Cline evoke these conversations, both tangibly and in terms of its underlying commentary. This is an exceptionally well-made film – it’s the clear epic scope that alludes to it being a reference to the existing silent era masterpieces that intended to produce works on a scale almost too large to be considered sustainable. Obviously, it goes without saying that Keaton and Cline did it much more cheaply and without flirting dangerously close with bankrupting themselves and their studio, to the point where part of the joy of seeing this film is witnessing some of the intentional attempts to cut corners and produce a work that is still visually quite arresting, but far less expensive, all in pursuit of tackling what we can consider to be the most universal question known to us, which is the root of love and how it has always connected us as a species over the centuries, launching us back into the earliest days of our sentience and showing that nothing much has actually changed. The validity of these observations is obviously never emphasised, since no one is seeking authenticity, but the fact that there are some astute observations around behaviourism and psychology embedded in this film is more of an unintended surprise than it is a feature in its design, which ultimately makes Three Ages an unexpectedly effective work.

When it comes to looking at Keaton’s work, it can be a challenge to distinguish his directing and his acting, since they’re obviously interwoven so closely together and cannot ever be entirely separated – he started directing precisely to give himself more free-reign as a performer, and conversely would always cast himself in the central roles, since it was clear that his vision was one in which he was the beating heart of these productions (unlike people like Charlie Chaplin, who were known to occasionally take on a smaller role in certain films) – and when you are arguably the most influential comedian of your generation, this kind of creative self-centeredness is not at all difficult to understand. Nonetheless, Keaton has proven yet again that he’s unquestionably talented, and his performance in Three Ages alone is a perfect example of this in practice – his usual stone-faced, deadpan persona is once again central to his character (or rather, the trio of very similar characters he plays across the three episodes), and his extraordinary physicality is also clearly on show, even if there aren’t too many off-the-wall stunts as there would be in his subsequent works. However, Three Ages is not only a vehicle for Keaton, but also for his two co-stars, who are similarly essential to the narrative. Wallace Beery is the brutish, vulgar nemesis who also has his eyes on Keaton’s love interest, while Margaret Leahy is the object of their affections – and they’re both terrific, the trio playing off each other exceptionally well and proving to be unexpectedly effective as a team, bringing out the best in one another and helping establish the clear narrative boundaries that keep this film so intriguing and captivating.

Considering his body of work and overall contributions to the cinematic medium, it seems impossible to pinpoint the most essential Keaton work, or even the one film that best describes him as a filmmaker. Choosing the perfect introductory work to his style is a challenge, since every one of his films is filled with merits that make it immediately clear why he was such an influential figure. Yet, I would probably choose Three Ages as one of the core directorial outings that introduces his style and unique handling of certain ideas – perhaps not his definitive masterpiece (it was his first feature-length directorial endeavour, so there are naturally going to be a few obstacles, which are entirely expected and ultimately the reason the film manages to be such an unexpectedly captivating spectacle), but it is nonetheless a very effective, well-crafted comedy in which we see Keaton’s penchant for the unconventional and daring shining through in every frame, his authorial voice being fully-formed and entirely engaging, leading to a narrative that is as brilliantly compelling as it is extremely odd, a quality we have grown to not only expect from Keaton, but outright appreciate. No one made films quite like him, and throughout his entire career, he developed such a strong, fervent dedication to the human condition, nothing else could potentially compare to the feeling of seeing him in his element, which is the perfect way to describe his efforts in this exceptionally delightful and frankly quite peculiar narrative.