Manhattan vs. Szindbad

This review is part of a series focusing on the MUBI DIRECTORS CUP. This informal online bracket competition pits films of various directors against each other, with the winner moving on to the next round with a different film. The only criteria for voting is that both films must be viewed.

Chapter One – Manhattan vs. Szindbad. I adored Woody Allen. I idolized him all out of proportion. Then he spent the last twelve or so years making crap films and I got over him. Revisiting Manhattan (1979) showed me that, unlike the characters in this film, I was not suffering from delusions, but was watching one of the great directors in his prime.

It’s one of the unforgettable openings in film. Stunning black and white images of New York City, while the soundtrack plays Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, combined with Allen’s narration commenting on what he perceives as his ideal self in his ideal locale. We will soon find out that Allen’s character Isaac, as well as the rest of his flawed entourage, idealizes relationships as well. Here’s what’s brilliant about the opening. By showing NYC in such a magical light, we are being primed to buy into these ideals. Because Isaac is played by Woody Allen, the lovable loser, we may not register that he’s no longer the underdog, but a successful, somewhat selfish man very capable of hurting others.

Isaac spends much of the film trying to justify, continue or end his affair with a 17 year-old high school student. Normally, this would alienate us from him, but it doesn’t, because he’s self aware enough to feel guilt (unlike a certain Hungarian lothario I’ll get to shortly) and Mariel Hemmingway’s understated portrayal of Tracy, who she invests with such maturity and smarts, that the relationship seems somewhat less inappropriate. We kind of have to keep reminding ourselves that an affair between a man of 42 and a girl of 17 is wrong. (Yes, this brings us some issues in Woody Allen’s personal life, but I don’t give damn about that. I’m only interested in his films.)

The Diane Keaton and Michael Murphy characters are not much better off. Despite their charm and likeability, they are serial adulterers, smart enough to know better AND to care, but not so smart as to commit to any kind of mature relationship. All this is after the fact analysis that doesn’t take into account how much Manhattan lures us into identifying with these flawed characters. I also haven’t mentioned how damn laugh out loud funny this film is. It contains possibly the sharpest writing of any Allen script, combining humor with a wistful sense of romance and the best looking cinematography Allen’s ever been associated with.

Szindbad AKA Sinbad is also a beautiful film to look at. This 1971 Hungarian period piece from director, Zoltán Huszárik, is told as a deathbed recollection of the title character trying to assign meaning to his life. There’s some artsy stylizing at hand with quick cuts to related, but separate moments from the narrative as well as to seemingly abstract close ups.

Sinbad’s recollections are that of an upper class turn-of-the-19th century womanizer who life was spent seducing and abandoning an endless array of beautiful women. Unlike, the characters in Manhattan, these relationships are embarked on with no sense of self awareness and no real joy either. Zoltán Latinovits plays Sinbad as an utter drip. With the exception of an elderly ex-lover he confides in, the women in his life are all interchangeable (although the death of one seems to have left a mark.) As viewers, we’re given little to distinguish his many conquests from each other.

The films many (tame) love scenes are filmed without an ounce of eroticism. In fact, Sinbad seems to regard these seductions as somewhat of a chore. There is, however, one very sensual scene, but it involves food rather than women. Sinbad sits down at a fancy restaurant to confront the ex-husband of one of his lovers. The meal is lingered upon in the kind of long and detailed close ups that exist nowhere else in the film. This sequence begins a more compelling final act than what came before.

All in all, my reaction to Sinbad was mixed. I admire its ornate look and how it captured its time period through sets and landscapes. If I was left cold by the lead performance, I’m sure this was by design. The risk of having distant characters is that you can end up keeping your audience at a distance. From a distance, it was interesting, creative and had something to say. That’s about as much affection as I can muster up for it.