Annie Hall

Annie Hall; romantic tragicomedy, USA, 1977; D: Woody Allen, S: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Beverly D'Angelo, Sigourney Weaver

Alvy Singer, a Jewish comedian in New York in his 40s, is having problems because his every relationship fell apart. He remembers how he grew up in Brooklyn when he was a kid, how he wrote jokes for other entertainers until he tried to perform himself and how he eventually started visiting a psychiatrist until today. One day, as he was playing tennis with his friend Rob, he met Annie and started dating her. For the first time he senses this romance has a future and falls deeply in love with her. But with time problems occur and Annie breaks up with him.

"Annie Hall" is, unlike other comedies, a very personal comedy, and that's why a lot of people tend to not understand it—or to even try to understand it. But if they ever tried to connect to the film's unusual level, they would maybe realize that there's a lot of amazing things in this shining film, the best Woody Allen ever made. Allen's fans will notice his films were pretty silly, thin filmed before 1977, than the most he did after that, which were more complex, emotional and aspirational. In that aspect, "Annie Hall" was his revolution—like all of his films, this one is also hermetic, a 'slice-of-life' piece without a story, with characters "just talking", and some will find that boring since it has no excitement. But Allen is simply a static, understated author, who de-dramatizes this film to the point of unglamorous reality, until you can practically taste and feel the life of New Yorkers in the 70s. The protagonist Alvy is a tragic figure pretending to be in a comedy: he realized life is meaningless already as a kid ("The Universe is expanding." - "What has the Universe got to do with it?"), became suicidal as a grown up ("I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian, and if you kill yourself, they make you pay for the sessions you miss!"), and hoped that he finally found a way out of depression through his true love Annie, who made him happy, but then she left him.

Allen's emotional stories tend to be as introverted, as routine as real life, but Allen discovers magic in that routine: for instance, when Annie and Alvy are out on a balcony they formally talk about art, but the subtitles in that scene "translate" their dialogues and tell what Alvy's really talking, about how he finds her attractive and likes her. Even later on the film proves to be so innovative that even Godard would be jealous of it: Alvy is walking down the street saying how he saw Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" when he was a kid and fell in love with the witch—and in the next scene he is shown in that animated film, discussing with the witch, about their marriage and her period. While Annie and Alvy are having sex, he complains she is "distant", and her soul is seen leaving her body and planning to do some drawing in the meantime. While watching a basketball game on TV, Alvy is asked "what is so fascinating watching a bunch of pituitary cases trying to stuff a ball through a hoop". In a fantasy sequence, Alvy guides Annie through his childhood memories in "3D". This "real-life comedy", Allen's version of "A Guy, A Girl", is so full of genius scenes and dialogues ("Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym. And those who couldn't do anything were assigned to our school"; "I came out to get some shock therapy, but there was an energy crisis") many of them fly off so fast that some will not even register them, but it is so rich with abstract beauty, male-female observations, themes about the loneliness, disappointment and sadness of outsiders, unattractive intellectuals. Because of its surreal tone and dry cleverness, some will be quick to dismiss "Annie Hall", not seeing trees from the forest, and the quiet romantic masterpiece hidden in that unbelievable hermetic style.

Grade:++++