Eine Reise mit der Liebe und dem Tod

Walk with Life and Death, A (1969)

** (out of 4)

When people discuss the great or awful films in the career of John Huston, this effort here rarely gets mentioned and that's probably because even the most die-hard Huston fan either hasn't sat through it or simply can't make it through. Apparently Huston selected to do this as something small and personal and one does have to respect him for trying a poetic movie like this but in the end the thing just didn't work for me. A man (Assaf Dayan) "hears" the "calls" of the sea and decides to leave Paris and walk to it. Along the way he encounters various forms of violence and a blooming relationship with a young woman (Anjelica Huston) who soon joins him on his journey. This film wasn't popular when it was first released and it seems very few people have bothered checking it out since then even though we've got a legendary director and his famous daughter in her first role. From the reviews I've read there appear to be a few fans of the film and it's poetic vision but for me the thing was a pretty big misfire. One of the biggest problems is Anjelica who is simply way out of her range in this type of part. This would have been a challenging role for anyone let alone someone making their first acting appearance. At times she seems all over the place while at other times she seems as if she doesn't know where to turn. Dayan doesn't fair much better but at least he seems at ease going through everything on this journey. The film moves at a rather slow pace, which I didn't really mind as Huston was trying to build some atmosphere out of it. The dialogue, cinematography and even the music score are all used to be dream-like but it just never really came together for me. This isn't an awful movie or an embarrassing one but it just felt too empty for me.

The movie is a thin, episodic journey through a landscape marked by battles and skirmishes and dangers - it doesn't aim for an epic quality (everything is very sparse) nor to analyze the political or social aspects of the situation (except in a brief appearance by Huston himself as a nobleman who's giving up his rank to join the peasants - he's much more vibrant and interesting than anyone else in the movie): actually it's a bit of a mystery what it DOES aim to do. Judged simply as an evocation of pure time and place, it's a bit too discreet and tidy - hardly the kind of attempt to conjure up messy verisimilitude that failed in "Revolution." Huston is fairly interesting and manages to convey both her noble blood and the idiosyncratic attitude that would have led her on this journey. The film's general discretion works against a compelling depiction of passion, and it ultimately seems to have worked its way merely to a teenage idyll of togetherness, which makes it hard to face up to the imminent tragedy. An odd item in Huston's filmography, sometimes exhibiting the awkwardness of a dubbed Continental item.

This is possibly Huston's purest film, by no means the most complex, but one in which he is least self-conscious and most able to let the creative process run free. It's the equivalent of Ingmar Bergman's "Virgin Spring", just as "Chinatown" might compare to "Cries and Whispers".

Huston's daughter, Angelica, contrary to some reviews above, fits extremely well, is not harsh-looking and unattractive, and is a superb casting. The difference between her looks as a teenager and as a woman are striking, but to call the casting "nepotism" is political correctness gone mad. Huston shouldn't ever be expected to conform to the codes of 21st century Mother Grundies.

Assaf Dayan may, paradoxically, have been helped by struggling a little in a language that was not his native tongue in conveying the sheer youth and hothouse growth of the character he's portraying. Contrast his performance as the psychotherapist in "Betipul", the Israeli TV series unceremoniously and unsubtly copied by HBO's "In Treatment". Age changes men as well as women, and in similar ways, even if Hollywood critics disagree.

Huston's movie is based on a curious but superb short novel, by a very underrated writer. Hans Konigsberger reminds me in some ways of Milan Kundera. He has the same flat intellectualised style contrasting starkly with the passion of the issues he's addressing. The novel takes about an hour to read and is well worth the effort.

Does someone know where I could buy a copy of the movie?

Brilliant evocation of youth in a time of social disruption. Angelica Huston's best work. Fascinating direction by John Huston. Based on an excellent novel. Well realized. Good depiction of medieval society. All in all, well worth seeing.

Filmmaking legend John Huston's visually sumptuous, rousingly full-blooded, hugely undervalued 'A Walk With Love and Death (1968) is, for me, one of the more unfairly neglected works of 60s agitprop cinema. This rather cruel, emotionally visceral, oppressively dark tale of burgeoning love set against the squalling, brutalist backdrop of 14th century France, with its increasingly malign, irreligious mania and ceaseless warmongering has retained much of its power to draw you into this especially grim and turbulent epoch.

Unlike so many bloodless, pretty-plastic cinema couples I had a great sympathy for the desperate travails of naive, haughty, yet wholly innocent Claudia of St. Jean (Angelica Huston) and her earnest young paramour Heron of Foix (Assi Dayan), and I can readily imagine Terry Gilliam, Michael Winterbottom, Andrea Arnold, and Gaspar Noe might also appreciate Huston's doomily atmospheric, frequently distressing period masterpiece. A bold, triumphant expression of refined cinematic art made ever more divine by maestro Georges Delerue's sublime score! While 'A Walk With Love and Death' is certainly not without its missteps, it is quite obvious that Huston's majestic, witheringly unsentimental film has not only endured, the galvanizing themes of an impoverished, ruthlessly exploited minority angrily rising up against their mercenary oppressors is disturbingly relevant!