Day 23: Love and Death

Napolean is invading Russia which means Boris (Woody Allen) has to join the army. That puts a bit of a dent in his plans, being that he is a pacifist and useless with weapons. He just wants to marry Sonja (Diane Keaton) and preferably live out his life without any murdering. He miraculously survives the battles unscathed and eventually marries Sonja. However, he can’t escape the murdering as she decides they should kill Napolean.

After his return from battle, Boris meets a lovely Countess and disgraces her honour, according to her lover. So, naturally, they must duel. Before he duels, Boris wants to marry Sonja. He's loved her since they were children and he wants her to promise. She promises that she will marry him if he survives the duel, believing that he couldn’t beat the Countess' lover. He does, however, and she has to marry him. She’s worried she’ll feel suffocated and trapped. I’ve always thought about that when I’ve thought about marriage. It seems insane to stay with one person forever, regardless of how amazing they are just now. How could you stay interested in one person forever? I mean, sure, I find people fascinating and I’m constantly surprised by the things they do but to make a commitment to one of them for the rest of my life seems so difficult. And how can you know what you’re going to feel for them years later? Feelings are fluid, I think. One person can be all you think about for a while and then you move on (or you don’t, that’s always less good). To say you’ll always love someone is to lie, in my opinion. You just don’t know that so how can you say it? I will grant you, it is a nice lie. But I’d much prefer people to say “I love you now” rather than “I’ll love you always”. It seems more honest.

Such a funny film. I wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are a wonderful duo and play off each other brilliantly. Sadly I have no time to write as much as I’d like to so I’ll have to stop here.

 “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness - I hope you’re getting this down.”

8/10