This film by Francis Ford Coppola is based on the short story by Romanian writer Mircea Eliade. Perhaps that is what is the trouble with the movie. Plot of the story is so multi-layered and complex that making a movie was no easy task.

Tim Roth plays an elderly linguistics professor who never managed to finish his one major work regarding the origins of the language. He is old and lonely, his life void of his one true love and his professional life work unfinished. One rainy day, he walks the streets of Bucharest and gets hit by the lightening. Before long, he makes remarkable recovery, starts looking 35 years younger and due to historical circumstances of the time (WWII) gets second chance in life. But even the second chances have their steep price. He must wrestle with his inner self that is trying to take sides between good and evil? Can he stay on the side of good and still acomplish his life's work?

Movie is visually very pleasing. I particlulary liked the part in Malta where now young professor finds his long lost love and wants to protect her at all costs. However, deep philosophical debates about consciousness and subconsciousness, soul reincarnation, power of words and language, legacy we as a human beings leave in the world is something tht really belongs to the written word rather than a film.

Wonderful cast is lead by Tim Roth, to include Bruno Gantz.

A mystery wrapped in an enigma encapsulated in a movie. Coppola has accomplished greatness again, managing to touch on the themes of lost love, and regained, youth, the nature of time, the search for knowledge, reincarnation and the non-linearity of time.

Is now now? Is the me writing this the same me as yesterday or as tommorow? Is the me that awakens exactly the same as the me the went to sleep the night before and what exactly happened in between? Are the people of the 1940's or 1890's actually still there, all of us in the now that is the present, or is the intensity of an experience sufficient for it to defy time?

I Know exactly the genesis of Coppola's idea and the compulsion that drives it. It is a universal imperative, contained in all of us and summarized in the first sentence of Aristotle's metaphysics.

It is in the sunlit radiance of the dawn as easily as in the memories of the lost loves of youth and it is in the confrontation with evil and the adherence to the sanctity of life, even unto the admission and allowance of its end.

As for the other, he knows it too and will admit it, though on his plane things are seen more completely, still it is not for him to partake of this life, that is reserved for us. The choice is ours. And that is the ultimate meaning of this remarkable and enjoyable film. The answers are there but for a very first step one must seek them and this involves the admission of that fact.

Note: I had to quote the other critic who did not find this movie so stunning, literarily. The same could be said about our world of high finance leading up to to stumble , slip, slide, collapse, shriek, horror, of 2007,&'08...and, we all suppose, '09!Did no one see this coming? Actually a few did...but as in all things..."The Few do not matter in the grand scheme of things one whit". They are merely the messengers with party pooper news that just get whipped, shot, and killed.
It's understandable that Coppola might try a real art piece in his golden years. We can't help but feel he must have identified with the character, Dominic, who seriously questioned his worth and contribution to the world as he stumbled, slipped, and slid into his seventies. It is an awful thing, - you whippersnappers who can't imagine losing eyesight, hearing, and even mental faculties. It's a bad time. Many of us can identify with Dominic as well...questioning our worth and contribution to life...and maybe that we might have squandered our lives more prudently/artistically/theologically...certainly more theologically and morally. Even Charlie Sheen is redeeming himself with his very successful sit com, "Two and a Half Men".
The movie will not disappoint artistically. The cinematography is unsurpassed. But was that Francis...or his cinematographer?
It's the story line that seemed never to even glance at the goofy meter. The actors, all of them, are absolutely superb -each deserving of approbation - ( except for the sad fact that we are in an interminable age of "Mumble Cinema"-meaning...no one wants to distort their pretty face by enunciating...just whisper, mumble pseudointellectual mumbo jumbo...sigh, and blub-glub foreign accents at a decible level well below the music track...all sort of up there with "The English Patient" in 'Mrr,, hrr, bliperrpt" incomprehensivble mutterings)... these actors portrayed one person reversing in time, and another "Soul Transmigrating" forward in time- first to the ancient beginnings of man and language...then forward to turn out to be Dominic's high school sweetheart. "Awww". (sorry ) I'm not supportive of the premesis, because it is more ten million dollar elaborate exposition of the "ABC" belief system="Anything But Christianity". Anyone who has never studied Judeo Christian Theology in great depth will contort their faces at this next remark-but all one needs to know about the history of the Earth and mankind is there in the Bible that you so despise you refuse to read it. ( which is not unlike despising asparagus, without ever having tasted it! ) Genesis was dictated to Moses, because the one who created the world in six days, knows the future, and knew that this would be a huge question in the late history of mankind. Now think about this: If you were a general and planning your battle strategy against "the despised enemy"...and your "enemy" knows the future and can and will anticipate your every move..how can you possibly plan any effective strategy at all? You can't win against a creator who demonstrates knowledge of the future all over the map. God created a "terrarium"; and the jealous kid next door was envious, and introduced toxins when God's attention wandered. It will take thousands of years to straighten out the putrified gene pool...but straighten it out He will...and the brat next door will "get his just due, and all who went over to his side". In the meantime, evil does win, and win big. But in the end, the oil will be separated from the water. It takes time, that's all.
Now a few million folks came up with 'some kind of explanation'...but it is only that..."some kind of explanation"-namely Buddhists and Hindus, Zorastrians, et. al. O.K., great. But in the end, they are each and every one- all "wannabee" religions. Incidentally, religious people are NOT what God is looking for or seeking to rescue. Religious people are interested Only in familiar rituals handed down from generation to generation. Anything odd frightens them...hence the sadistic persecution of the "odd person" in High School= Something that compels folks at the synagogue and the Church to all dress and act alike...fear of persection. It is all tragicomedy. It is only those who have hit rock bottom so hard that they cried out for help in humility, and God lifts these very people out of the "vortex to perdition", thus "saving" them. If one has lived a life of priveledge all of one's life...these poor souls cannot possibly distinguish between what is resplendent and what is repugnant. This explains Ron Howard's anti religious zeal. ( prime expample of a life of priveledge ) All semi erudite/pseudo intellectual mincing about in powdered wigs, sniffing the snuff of our fame and fortune= swill, created by a Brit, where Darwin is has become the God of all creation.
And this in turn has more to do with making large amounts of filthy lucre, and absolutely nothing to do with enlightening john q public.
Meaning, we are back to the "goofy meter pegging"...all over the map.... the poor little rich boys simply don't realize at all what bleating, Dodo Birds and useless Gnats they have become...and soon to be extinct themselves-and haven't the foggiest clue...thus they , like Dominic, have utterly wasted their lives. This is the one concept that saves this movie.

This is already a brilliant movie but like every blu-ray movie it looks way nicer on the the HDTV.

****1/2 2007. Based on Mircea Eliade's Youth Without Youth, this film was written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Struck by a lightning, a 70 years old Romanian teacher survives and is rewarded by the ability to live a second life that will allow him to assimilate the whole human Knowledge. This is a haunting movie dealing with important themes such as time, love, oldness or Man's origin, it kept me awake late last night long after its ending. I wouldn't qualify this film as arty because its form and its story aren't incomprehensible for the lambda viewer. The themes handled by the director are intellectually demanding but their exposition is very simple; that's the mark of a great director. Highly recommended.

I didn't make it through it. It was too slow, too artsy, and the dialogue was too heavily accented for me to follow.

The story has potential - an old man is struck by lightning and begins getting younger. From there, it lost me. Now that the guy has special powers, everybody is after him - the Nazis, the Americans, etc. That's about all I got through.