Youth Without Youth: Francis Ford Coppola (19.02.09)

Based on a short story by the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade whose best known work is probably 'The Sacred and the Profane', this is completely unlike anything else Coppola has done. An elderly man falls and, while in hospital becomes much younger in appearance while retaining the memories of his life. Tim Roth plays the central role extermely well in a mesmerising film about belief and memory which demands another viewing to understand its complexity. Unlike "Banjamin Button' which is a strightforward tale of a baby born physically old and regressing through life to die as an infant, 'Youth Without Youth' is a far more complax examination of what it means to be human.