Manhattan

One yea after his triumph at the oscars, Woody Allen came back to visit the themes he endears the most, people, relationships, psychanalysis, and a New York, and rather then taking a thematic departures, he made what might be qualified as the second volume of a trilogy which is still unachieved, "Manhattan" that is, one of the director's landmarkish works.

Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) is a successful TV writer in New York with a fair amount of success

with women, and friends who support him, what seems to be a happiness receipe has the exact opposite effects on Isaac, he is neurotic, self loathing, and dating a seventeen years old girl Tracy (Mariel Hemingway).

In a broad move of desperation Isaac quits his high paying job to focus on writing his book, but he is unable to work, and his finances decline rapidly, during this time he meets Mary (Diane Keaton) a pseudo intellectual as he describes her, who can go on showing off her knowledge for hours about things ranging from Van Gogh to the Saturn's sattelites, a series of events lead the two of them to date, Mary who is every bit as neurotic and unsecure as Isaac is a perfect match for him for a while, but does this affair have a future.

This movie takes the older then this world concept of "greener on the other side" puts many levels of comedy and brilliance over it, Isaac doesn't know what he wants, and he systematically destroys any chance he might have to be a little bit happy, some people are just like that, his relationship with Tracy is perfect but he intellectualise it too much, his other relationship with Mary is him going to the other side of the specturm to see if he fits in there, but he is a misfit, in all ranges, colours, and relationships.

It's shot in a great black and white by Gordon Willis in wider then usual format, maybe to capture the broadth of the city, the dialogues are brilliant, and the acting a little bit theatrical, but theather is not far from this movie, nor is the cinema of Bergman, one of Allen's hero.

But in it's essence this movie is a commentary he is having on the intellectual circles of New York, despite his looks Woody Allen is the kind of a person "to stay the whole afternoon watching sports on television then reading russian litterature" he seems to have more then desdain for pseudo intllectuals and their self centred monologues, but it is also a very funny movie, with hilarious bits of dialogues, and a very good romatnic comedy in it's own right, one of the director's/authors best films to date, it manages to have it's pulse on the city's rhythm, while drawing a broad painting on the issues it's inhabitants might have, and considering the huge task that is, it's a masterful piece of work, and a good place for anybody to dive in the Allenian brilliant universe.