Synopsis

When Napoleon invades the Russian Empire during the Napoleonic wars, Boris Grushenko (Allen), a coward and pacifist scholar, is forced to enlist in the Russian Army, desperate and disappointed hearing the news that his cousin Sonja (Keaton) is to wed a herring merchant.

He inadvertently captures a group of enemy soldiers, but to no avail, as the French army reaches Moscow immediately afterward.



He returns and marries the recently-widowed Sonja (who really does not want to marry Boris, but promises him she will when she thinks he is about to be killed in a duel), a marriage filled with philosophical debates, and no money.

Boris thinks that the French invasion of Moscow should put an end to the war. His narcissistic wife, angered that the invasion will interfere with their plans to start a family that year, conceives a plot to assassinate Napoleon at his quarters.



Boris and Sonja debate the matter with some degree of philosophical double-talk, and Boris reluctantly goes along with it. Sonja escapes arrest while Boris is executed despite being told by a vision that he will manage to escape. -- Wikipedia

Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Olga Georges-Picot, Harold Gould, Tony Jay, Jessica Harper, Henri Coutet, Despo Diamantidou, Féodor Atkine, Alfred Lutter, James Tolkan

Berlinale

Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Love and Death is a satirical take on Russian epic novels.

Coming in between Sleeper and Annie Hall, Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two.

It is one of the last of Allen's movies that tries to get as many laughs as possible, but contains a lot of commentary on philosophy, a balance that Allen feels makes it one of his best and most personal films.

Keaton and Allen, as Sonja and Boris, Russians living during the Napoleonic Era, engage in mock-serious philosophical debates.