I thought the title A Walk With Love And Death might be a metaphor – that the "walk" might stand for a journey or a quest, or perhaps even someone's lifetime, with various romances and fatalities along the way. In fact, the title is an absolutely literal description of what the film is about - the story follows a disillusioned student in the Middle Ages as he walks to the sea, encountering love and death en route. It is a very picaresque story, similar to the books that Tobias Smollett was writing in the 18th century (though in this case it is based on a novel by 20th century Dutch novelist Hans Koninsberger). John Huston is the unlikely director behind it, and he brings a modern sensibility to the proceedings – his film is more concerned with Flower-Power, Peace & Love and the 60s Youth Movement than the barbarism of the Middle Ages.
During the Hundred Years War, student Heron of Fois (Assi Dayan) marches out of a lecture in Paris and decides to walk across his war-torn country to the sea. It is a long trek, and even though it takes him through beautiful landscapes there are constant reminders of the scars of war. Dead bodies drift by in rivers, cattle lies slaughtered in the fields and castles burn on the horizon. During the trip Heron meets a beautiful young noble-woman, Claudia (Anjelica Huston), who eventually joins him on his journey to the sea. Neither of them has ever set eyes on the sea before, but both share a foolish dream that if they can somehow get there all their problems will be resolved. However, the land becomes increasingly dangerous as peasant armies rise up in revolt against the soldiery, and the young companions gradually realise that their quest is doomed to fail.
Huston's film is very personal, too much so to be a commercial success at the time. Having said that, some of the remarkably negative reviews that have been written about it are hardly fair. It is true that the story is very minor and insubstantial; it is true that the two leads are awfully wooden in their roles; it is true too that Dayan's character is completely unbelievable in a Middle Ages setting with his saintly "make-peace-not-war" attitude. Yet in spite of these flaws, there are still things to enjoy in A Walk With Love And Death. It is a beautifully shot film, with eye-catching colours and backgrounds captured in luscious DeLuxe by Ted Scaife (of The Dirty Dozen and Khartoum). Georges Delerue provides a haunting score, and Huston generates some fairly realistic scenes of hysteria and combat (one sequence, in which a man is quartered, is notably gruesome, albeit in a non-gratuitous way). While the film is not in the very top tier of the director's work, it certainly doesn't deserve to have been neglected as much as it has. It is perhaps best summed up as a worthy flop.
During the Hundred Years War, student Heron of Fois (Assi Dayan) marches out of a lecture in Paris and decides to walk across his war-torn country to the sea. It is a long trek, and even though it takes him through beautiful landscapes there are constant reminders of the scars of war. Dead bodies drift by in rivers, cattle lies slaughtered in the fields and castles burn on the horizon. During the trip Heron meets a beautiful young noble-woman, Claudia (Anjelica Huston), who eventually joins him on his journey to the sea. Neither of them has ever set eyes on the sea before, but both share a foolish dream that if they can somehow get there all their problems will be resolved. However, the land becomes increasingly dangerous as peasant armies rise up in revolt against the soldiery, and the young companions gradually realise that their quest is doomed to fail.
Huston's film is very personal, too much so to be a commercial success at the time. Having said that, some of the remarkably negative reviews that have been written about it are hardly fair. It is true that the story is very minor and insubstantial; it is true that the two leads are awfully wooden in their roles; it is true too that Dayan's character is completely unbelievable in a Middle Ages setting with his saintly "make-peace-not-war" attitude. Yet in spite of these flaws, there are still things to enjoy in A Walk With Love And Death. It is a beautifully shot film, with eye-catching colours and backgrounds captured in luscious DeLuxe by Ted Scaife (of The Dirty Dozen and Khartoum). Georges Delerue provides a haunting score, and Huston generates some fairly realistic scenes of hysteria and combat (one sequence, in which a man is quartered, is notably gruesome, albeit in a non-gratuitous way). While the film is not in the very top tier of the director's work, it certainly doesn't deserve to have been neglected as much as it has. It is perhaps best summed up as a worthy flop.