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| Youth Without Youth | 
| Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Actors: Bruno Ganz, Tim Roth, Andre Hennicke, Adrian Pintea, Marcel Iures
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.94
Buy New: $2.17
You Save: $17.77 (89%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (17 reviews)
Sales Rank: 13556
Format: Ac-3, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), Italian (Original Language), Romanian (Original Language), Russian (Original Language), Sanskrit (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 125 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: COLD22528D
UPC: 043396225282
EAN: 0043396225282
ASIN: B0014FAIZC
Release Date: May 13, 2008
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Francis Ford Coppola returns to the realm of his mastery with a new film about growing young. A bolt of lightning strikes Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) so close to death that he begins to age backwards. When he grows from 70 to 40 in a week, he draws the attention of the Nazis and the world. Now he's running for his life with a new love and no hope of knowing his phenomenal fate.
Amazon.com
Francis Ford Coppola returns to directing for the first time in a decade with the fascinating if perplexing Youth Without Youth, a kind of science-fiction tale of mythic proportions based on a novella by the late Romanian historian and religion scholar Mircea Eliade. Tim Roth stars as elderly linguist Dominic Matei, whose life work--uncovering the roots of human language--has been stymied throughout his long and undistinguished career. Struck by lightning while crossing a Bucharest street in 1938, Matei not only survives but goes through a physical transformation, reverting to the age of 35 and remaining ageless for decades to come. Trying to remain incognito, Matei is pursued in Europe by Nazi intelligence as well as journalists, acquiring strange powers and communicating with a sort of psychological double of himself. Throughout, Matei finds himself unable to escape a cyclical destiny, particularly when he falls for a woman (Alexandra Maria Lara)--physically! similar to a lost love in his pre-lightning life--whose apparent possession by ancient, Indian deities is useful to his work but dangerous to her. The episodic film lurches along with the logic of a dream siphoned into waking life, a constantly shifting consciousness that suggests Matei exists in several planes of experiential reality simultaneously. Coppola has been down this hallucinatory road before, perhaps most spectacularly in Apocalypse Now. But it is not hard to see how Youth Without Youth is a very personal film for him and somewhat of a parallel to his career, which seems rejuvenated with the release of this complex movie, so full of the kind of technical and stylistic flourishes that brought Coppola legions of admirers and detractors years ago. --Tom Keogh Stills from Youth Without Youth (click for larger image) Beyond Youth Without Youth 
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 keeping one's eye on the goofy meter December 27, 2008
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.
 YoY Blu-Ray December 20, 2008
This is already a brilliant movie but like every blu-ray movie it looks way nicer on the the HDTV.
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, OPUS 23 July 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
****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.
For film students and philosophers July 14, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Because nobody else is going to enjoy it. I had high hopes for this film that were entirely unrealized. The premise of the movie isn't even original - a man endures an accident and grows younger, to be pursued by those who want to understand and exploit his secret. Stephen King did that in 1991's Golden Years, and it wasnt that interesting then.
The only positive comment I can make about this movie is that it's visually interesting - the cinematography and period recreation is well done. Otherwise this is a rambling incoherent mess passing itself off as a stream of consciousness film.
This is an art film. If you're someone who enjoys perusing art galleries trying to intellectualize and decipher meaning from abstract images, then you'll enjoy this. If you're seeking to be entertained for entertainments sake, put this movie down and step slowly away.
 Confusing, boring and pretentious June 21, 2008
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
There were great expectations with this movie, ten years after the latest Coppola movie.The result, however, seems very disappointing. There's no doubt that the photography is gorgeous; but that's all about its merits. Actually, there's about 8 to 10 movies in here and none makes complete sense. The first plot about a 70 year-old linguist who is literally hit by a thunderbolt and regains youth takes you to another one and then another and then another, with thin (or none)substantial relation between them, being its pretentiousness the only linking root. Crowded with bizarre characters, the confusing story depicts - besides the hero - a wise scientist, a bunch of nazis trying to kidnap the linguist, a girl with memories of lost love, spies, more nazis and many more. The intriguing anecdotes take you from Rumania to India, Malta and Switzerland, but actually the movie goes nowhere. I's hard to make much sense out of such a muddle. And it's also hard to believe that this pretentious, over-plotted, awfully boring and sometimes ludicrous hotch potch belongs to the same creator who gave such masterpieces like THE GODFATHER TRILOGY or APOCALYPSE NOW.
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