Di pari passo con l'amore e la morte

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!

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?

I would have preferred the film in Sepia or black and white. Everyone was a bit too made up for the 14th. Century. Interesting, thought provoking but only mildly entertaining. Certainly not one of John Huston's best efforts.

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.

An obscure movie from the master John Huston, what's hell it happens I really don't know, but for me a forgotten gem, set place during the Hundred Years War between England and France, a young French man Heron of Fois (Assaf Dayan) distressed by such killing and madness he decides leave Paris and start a journey towards to the sea, wondering leaves the country at overseas, along the way he meets several people, peasants, soldiers and a beauty lady Claudia (Anjelica Huston) whose he wrote a poetry, in exchange she gave him her silk scarf for good luck, late he meets a bunch of men back from a failed journey to Jerusalem, this small group are gathering newcomers to try again, the Pilgrim's leader asking him about everything, including women, if he wants follow them he needs forget all sins and treat the women as Devil's creatures, very soon he realizes that they are crazy and left them for good, when he finally reach near of shore, someone talk about an uprising of the peasants against Noblemen, then he returns to helps Lady Claudia which the castle was raided, a rarest movie to be found, where John Huston implies a sort of pureness in a world collapsed by an endless wars, a man looking for peace and freedom, an anti-war picture, shrewdly done by the prolific director, a must to see!!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8