Avalon

I'm 73 years old these days. I first saw Avalon about 25 years ago and I thought it was a fine movie. I watched it again yesterday and, in my eyes, it has now become a masterpiece. It is essentially about the life of one immigrant who came to America in 1914 as a young man, brought over by his brothers who came before him. He starts a family. The movie follows the family through the decades ranging from the 1940s to the 1970s. The family is in most ways ordinary. No one invents anything. These is no great artist, nor criminal. It is, essentially, a sentimental, somewhat bittersweet trip through mid-20th Century America.

I guess I have come to love Avalon because I have taken that same trip. My life's journey was about 20 years later than the one portrayed in the movie, and I was in Columbus, Ohio, not Baltimore, but many of the vignettes depicted in Avalon could have been mine. So, my 8-star rating is based largely on how I personally identify with the movie. If I were 18 and were watching it on TV on a Saturday afternoon, I'm not sure I would have made it through the whole movie. The film would not speak to me, at least not yet. Fact is, I may be in the last generation that sees Avalon in nostalgic terms rather than historic terms. I guess that's what happens with the passing of time.

It was like watching 30 Woody Allens frantically talking at the same time. At some moments a bit overwhelming but, all in all a good movie, also reminds me on Woody Allen's "Radio days". America, when the american dream was still a thing people believed in.

If you want a film that celebrates a way of life that's almost gone, that's well-acted in every department, and that gives you a major case of the warm fuzzies in a way the movies seem to have forgotten how to, Barry Levinson's "Avalon" is definitely it.

First, let's examine the cast: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth Perkins, Elijah Wood (some ten years pre-"LOTR"), Joan Plowright and Lou Jacobi ("Time to make the donuts!") all give fine, understated performances. Mueller-Stahl, in particular, is the sort of gentle, old-world grandfather anyone might have wished for.

But, as I said earlier, what this film is mainly about is a loving salute to a way of life that's almost gone. As a second generation American growing up in New York, what strikes me about "Avalon" is how real it all is, especially if you grew up in this era, as I did. Young Michael Kaye might have been myself in many ways. And a recent family reunion brought this feeling all back again.

A Wonderful, warm movie. See it!

"Avalon": I don't put a film into my TOP category with ease. I take it very seriously. Each time I see "Avalon" by Barry Levinson, I appreciate it, and him, more. This film has depth, humor, complexity, subtlety, sadness, resignation, joy… It is Family. For better and for worse, Family. The passage of Time, the scars we Inherit, Create, Share. Moments and Memories - precious commodities. A beautiful film that looks at five generations of Family, over a 60+ year span. It's a totally emotional film. The layers are always present. We see this family through the eyes of everyone, which is quite a feat. You get to know everyone. You see their point, then you see someone else's point, then you see what is happening and what may not be repaired. On it goes. And it makes you want to hold your family a little closer, and work a little harder at making it the center of Life, even when it seems impossible.

Avalon is really a beautifully written story and Levinson's cast is excellent. This really is one of the better stories of the American experience. Actually I'd have to say it's the BEST story of the American experience ever brought to film. I say that knowing that it really is the urban Jewish-American experience and not one that is necessarily shared by other groups. I dont care for rigid definitions of the American experience because it can be a vastly differing one. Having said that though, I must still say that Avalon is a wonderful chronicling of an American immigrant family originaly from Eastern Europe who put down roots in the Avalon section of Baltimore. It is refreshing in that New York City is generally credited for this kind of narrative. So much so that it's easy to forget that ethnic communities sprang up in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco etc. Not just NYC. Through the narration of Sam Krichinsky we see his children and grandchildren grow up and he grow old. We are with him when his wife (Joan Plowright)passes away, When his son's business is destroyed by fire, when he argues with his oldest Brother and a great rift divides the Krichinskys forever. we hear his stories of this and that and always he returns to the 4th of July 1914 when he arrived in Baltimore for the first time. Levinson is fantastic as he films what is obviously an idealized representation seen only in Sam Krichinsky's "rose colored" memory of the event. There is so much poignance, sorrow, and love in "Avalon" and small details become deeply profound moments in the life of an elderly man struggling to remember the good times while the world moves on. The closing scene in which Sam's Grandson (now a father himself), with whom he has always had a close relationship, visits him in a nursing home. We know from Sam's state that the end cannot be far. Its a brief scene with little dialogue but it is AWESOME!!!! in the sublime way it conveys it's message. I choke up just thinking about that scene. See "Avalon"!!!