I've been looking forward to this new Woody Allen movie all year, and I finally saw it. Much of the film is just what I expected: part fantasy reminiscent of Purple Rose of Cairo (one of my favorite films) where Owen Wilson's character Gil - a writer on vacation with his girlfriend - meets some of the great artists and writers of the 1920s and earlier (in his dreams, of course). My favorite part was when he meets Toulouse Lautrec in a can-can and this is a really fun part.
In the film Gil makes a comment that Parisians are more sophisticated than Americans, and dreams of living there. He is also a nostalgia buff and idolizes artists of the past, which is a preoccupation that is criticized by other characters in the film.
At midnight each night, his dreams come true and is magically is transported back into time to Paris in the 1920s, and gets "advice" from the likes of Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. Gil's left wing political views aren't explored any further, even when he comes into contact with all of these artists who would have shared his political passions. One character makes a comment about Trotsky which made me want to see a scene with Trotsky and Gil (it doesn't happen but that would have been interesting!).
I always love it when a film brings together so many historical figures because it always makes me want to learn more about them. In the movie, we see short glimpses of Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and filmmaker Luis Bunuel, but they are very short and those people don't become supporting characters, which I was secretly hoping for. I'm not a Bunuel expert so I probably missed some of the inside jokes that Allen writes in here. Picasso shows up, and I wished there were more scenes with him. I'd even love to see Chagall at work. Oh well, now we're talking about my dream and not Gil's.
The movie met my expectations for the most part, and I pleasantly surprised to see so many shots of great Paris landmarks. I've been there and this brought back alot of great memories of my trip. Someone even mentions going on a trip to Mont St Michel. Wow - I've been there too and how fun it would have been to see that on the big screen. Has there ever been a movie filmed on Mont St Michel? I wonder.
But still, there is something missing from this film that I still have not been able to put my finger on. I don't consider this to be a masterpiece like I think Purple Rose is. I walked out of this movie longing to see John Huston's Moulin Rouge again. Now that's a great film.