sandgrainday I'm quite upset that this film is rated so low and so few people are interested in the film. Youth Without Youth is a masterpiece. The story is thought-provoking, even though it doesn't really provide answers to the philosophical questions it raises.I guess that's why many people don't like this film—everything is so vague. It doesn't explain the scientific reasons behind those many weird things in it, because it's not Marvel Comics. It doesn't have a complete, detailed, linear story line, because it's not a telenovela. It's all about philosophy and religion. (The original writer Mircea Eliade was a philosopher and historian of religion.) Some people must have this deep fear that their life is meaningless—I know I do have this fear—your very existence is meaningless, you have lived in vain. Then what gives meaning to life? Dominic Matei's search for the origin of human language is more than an academic research, is a search for deeper understanding of humanity itself. From a religious point of view, because "in the beginning was the Word" and language was given to human (not created by human), it's also a search for metaphysical knowledge.Almost inevitably, Dominic fails; worse, he can never be with the love of his life. To some extent, his attempts and failures represent any person's attempts and failures.It's a good film that leads to some musings about life.

schorschi100 As once Theodoros Aggelopoulos said, you need three things to make a great movie: a good scenario, a good scenario and a good scenario. This is definitely not the case here. There are countless loose threads of an underlying, yet never revealed story, and a constant insinuation of a great truth to be uncovered... which never happens. The characters are never shown in their true struggling (be it for life, truth, love or perception), the hero undergoes no catharsis/enlightenment/revenge (in other words whatever potentially gives purpose) and the rest do not contribute in any manner whatsoever. Every little story line is abandoned to make place to a new one which, in turn, gets later abandoned as well... I spent two hours waiting for the numerous pieces of a puzzle to add up to the big picture, to no avail. The pieces increased in number while their sense slowly faded away.The movie might please some wannabe cineastes, but to me (who have watched my share of excellent Tarkovski, Wenders and even Copola movies) it was just a waste of time. I give four stars for the, admittedly, superb aesthetics and acting.

Charles Herold (cherold) Youth Without Youth is a purposely odd movie. An old man becomes a young man and encounters a variety of people. There is a general story arc, but it all feels rather episodic. There are some clever moments, but overall it seems to go on and on without getting anywhere.Watching the movie made me curious about the novella it's based on, perhaps because its structure seems more conducive to literature. I don't know if the book is any good, but I could see a book within the movie that has potential.I think the problem is, the movie sits on the fence between storytelling and dreamlike mystery. And because it never commits to either, it does both poorly. I see here that responses to this film are all over the map, and that's not surprising. The enigmatic approach will always appeal to some people. But for me the film felt like a half enigma that never engaged me, even though it was just curious enough to keep me discontentedly watching until the end.

dont_tell_duncan Let me start by confirming I am big fan of art-house cinema and generally ignore most of the crap at the multiplex. So this film should be for me according to a lot of these reviews? Except it is flabbergastingly pretentious and frankly totally boring. Just some of the many clichés:Long rambling dialogue containing cod philosophy that is difficult to absorb in one sitting - check! Confusing time sequencing intended to disorientate - check! 'Righteous' battle to elude Nazis - check! Several sections spoken in different languages (including Sanskrit!?) - check! Ridiculous unnecessary shots such as the one of Roth face down in the bath or any number of the 'upside down' sequences - check!I could go on with many more but why keep hammering the point. And that's essentially where this film falls down - yes, if you watched it 5 or 10 times you'd probably see something deeper in it. But it's so laborious I found myself wondering why I bothered sitting through it all once let alone multiple times!There is, admittedly, some beautiful cinematography - especially of the landscapes - but unless you think the concepts that 'growing old is scary' and that 'you may end up at 70 wishing/dreaming you had regained your youth/had more time' are "revolutionary", I doubt you're going to find much in this two hours of incoherence.