Youth Without Youth

Rating: 7.7/10

Genre: Drama

Overall value for money and time: 7.0/10

Bought the dvd off a nearby movie rental outlet and there were two main reasons why I didn't hesitate to buy this "who knows how many handed movie" even though it was 1.unheard of and 2. pretty expensive considering it's a 2007 production. The reasons were that it's from the acclaimed director of The Godfather Trilogy and that there's Tim Roth, the lead of the popular US series Lie to Me acting in it.

A 70+ year old linguistics professor who was about to commit suicide was struck by lighting while crossing the street. He awoke to find himself growing younger and gaining intellect and powers beyond the explanations of science. He soon becomes the target of the Nazis who want to capture him to study his powers and thus, leads a life of a "fugitive".

Later in his life he met a lady who looks like his deceased wife and a love story develops soon after. With the aid of his new found love, he inches slowly towards fulfilling and accomplishing his supposed life work of the origins of the human language. However, his new life was more complicated that he had imagined and before long finds himself circling back to where he started.

The fairly elaborate sypnosis is necessary for me to account for my personally ratings as there were lots of mixed reviews online... Majority didn't like the movie for being too "philosophical" and "messy". Others loved it for the supposed "deeper" meanings and renditions of time, reincarnation and spirituality. After viewing the movie, I didn't quite understand it, therefore I turned to the net for answers but to my dismay, there wasn't a complete explanation of it - not even a half complete one.

Even those who enjoyed it merely brought up terms but didn't provide reasons they loved it, probably because this movie is way too ambiguous in its original form. Therefore, after much thought into it, I have decided to pin down my own interpretation of the movie and hope that with this review, I will shed insight into the movie and hopefully spark anyone's interest in viewing it.

*Major spoilers ahead*. First off, the most obvious and apparent sypnosis of the movie is probably the key to understanding this film. Let's very quickly jump to the end of the movie. The critical point is where he re-aged and re-entered his supposed life, after which he walked out of his favourite hangout bar where he met his old time friends, vomitted blood and collapsed at the base of a long stairway. He was found dead the very next day.

That was the scene which created the "question marks" in everyone's minds, "So, was what he experienced throughout the movie real? Or was it just a figment of his imagination?" My entire interpretation is based on the assumption of the latter, that everything we experienced in the movie didn't actually happen.

Possibly, all that happened when he was lying at the base of the stairway about to take his final breath, when he had flashbacks into his past fused the imagination of another alternative life. The stairway could represent the beginning of the end. Let us return to the start of the movie. Basically, the main point was that he was on the brink of despair due to the meaningless life he was living, unrecognised for his work, lost his loved one years back and was on the verge of suicide.

Imagine an old man like him, what would be his "fantasies" of a better life? Well, everything that happened throughout the movie was what he had hoped for for a better life. Meaning - He was struck by lighting, gained profound knowledge and was hunted down by the Nazis. Who wouldn't ask for something like that? To be noticed, to be highly intellectual and to avoid falling into the hands of evil with his new found power. The idea of being different, unique and special was potrayed in that scene.

Throughout the movie, one might be puzzled that there seems to be a discontinuation of the plot, as if it didn't flow well... I think that was intentional, to represent the different aspects of what was missing in the professor's life that he needed to fill - the different episodes in his new life.

There were 3 main characters in his "new life" - a doctor who was helping him right from the start but later died in a plane crash (possibly caused by the Nazis); his alter ego who has been speaking to him in mirrors and explaining to him about the situations as he progressed along his life; and his new found love who underwent a similar accident of being struck by lightning and surviving, who was also "possessed" by Rupini (one of the first disciples of Buddha).

The doctor represented his helplessness in life, where there was no one he could longer trust (mentioned in the scene where Matt Damon cameoed) ever since his doctor was killed in the plane accident. His alter ego was his direction in life, basically himself telling him what to do and explaining his current situations to him as if he was merely a character living in his alter ego's world. As for his new found love, though it wasn't mentioned how his past love died, it was hinted when he had to stay away from her to keep her young even though being close to her allowed him to finish his life's work about the origins of the human language.

His past wife probably died because he was too focused on his work and neglected her, and didn't want to commit the same mistake again - basically the "part of the movie" with his new found love was his way of self-redemption. She was supposedly able to go back in time each night when she slept during which each trance allowed the professor to be further exposed to the early forms of language. Possibly the lighting strike was to create a common feature between both of them so that he could relate to her and the trance which she experienced probably meant she was reincarnated and not possessed, since that was a convenient explanation (in his mind) to link between his life's work and the love of his life which he lost...

At the start, he mentioned about losing an envelope which contained poison to kill himself after he woke up burnt from the lightning strike. At the end of the movie, he took out something which looked like the envelope he was holding on to at the start of the movie and it wasn't poison, instead it was his past love carrying a child. This could also mean that his past love didn't die but was merely living apart from him as he left them for his life's work and was grievened when he saw his child and ex-wife (I'm assuming they were husband and wife).

When he smashed the mirror killing his alter ego, it was the point in his "dream" that he finally wanted to wake up because the 3 major aspects of his life has already been "solved". That wasn't long before he returned to his favourite bar, before that being greeted by the counter girl saying "Welcome back", where he met his old time friends and he started to age back to his original age. That was when he told his pals that he will tell them when he has solved the problem "which everyone has". This was also a part which confused me but I think the problem he was referring to is the meaning in life. He tried to understand it, "by creating a new life, going back to it and reliving it", only to find more questions than answers...

Another major puzzling line was when he kept muttering to himself, "Where do I want the last rose?" Two roses supposedly appeared in his hand and knee respectively as if by magic in the midst of the movie and he was disrupted before the third rose appeared. He mentioned it again at the end of the movie which was extremely puzzling. I believe the 3 stalks of roses represented the 3 missing aspects of his life; wisdom, acknowledgement and love. The first two probably represented wisdom and acknowledgement, which he did manage to "solve" or receive throughout his "new" life. However, the last aspect, love, was still incomplete and left him wondering where it went, or where it should have gone.

Initially, I thought the very reason why roses were used was redundant. I soon realised that it might hold more meaning than what it appears to seem. This realisation was sparked when I noticed even the poster was all filled with roses. Why not beans? Why not wands? Why not water bottles? Roses are often associated with love, passion. Therefore, his passion for wisdom, acknowledgement and love were the 3 main missing aspects of his current life. Ultimately, all 3 led to finding the true meaning in his life, the problem he was trying to solve. However, it seemed that the most vital aspect was the last, which was love itself. It's incompletion took away all meaning in his life, which left him back to square one at the end of the movie.

The 3 missing aspects of his life were gained "magically", as suggested in the movie. This could also represent the "magical" enlightenment of how one achieves wisdom, acknowledgement and most important love. Love in itself.... is magically...

Another interesting part of the movie to recall is that his alter ego said something like, "Guess I won't be needed for a time." After which he faded away and didn't appear for a while in the movie. All these happened when his new love found the cave which Rupini supposedly died in it and returned to her normal self. This further enforced my interpretation of how his alter ego was the direction in his life and his new love created a new "direction" in his life.

These are most of the vivid parts which I remember of the film and though it might sound overthought, I believe that my interpretation holds some truth of the matter. Still, it's all up to individual's interpretations which makes these kind of movies so interesting in its own right. It reminds me of another classic movie, Mulholland Drive. and I think this movie is apt only for those who loves thought provoking movies. If you're not one like that, missing this film wouldn't be a great deal to you.

In essence, this movie is just a highly abstract love story, with it's other elements such as space time continuum, reincarnation, bypassing human abilities etc. simply as "byproducts" which helps to enhance the storyline (my perception of the movie is different in this sense as most believes the gist of the movie are the elements). This movie is possibly trying to bring across to the audience that "Love creates the real meaning in life". No one can stand loneliness, humans are in nature social beings, not solitary ones...

Frankly, I didn't like Tim Roth's acting in this film, mediocre not fantastic, but everyone else did a great job, especially the female lead. Youth without Youth, as the movie title suggests, being young again when you're not actually young. The inversion of the text could probably mean an inverted perception of what youth is really all about (further enhanced by inverted takes throughout the movie). Youth without Youth is not your average cup of tea, highly subjective movie which either confuses you whole, or opens your mind to another world of film making.