Stardust Memories

The schlemiel strikes back: at critics, at sycophants, at pigeons ('rats with wings'), and at a universe that can contain both Charlotte Rampling's face and human-skin lampshades. Tactically adopting his most autobiographical persona yet, Allen finally lets his anger loose, and it dumps on everything with unaccustomed savagery. Crossed with the strain of vengeance are his own attempts to make a film (which looks like Art), and also his snagged-up relations with three different ladies. A movie of great moments rather than the coherence of Manhattan, as if acknowledging that Memory works best in fragments. But, having stolen Fellini's 8 2 structure, Allen stands in danger of likewise painting himself into a corner of solipsism. His 'early, funny' films, that everyone complains he no longer makes, were good exactly because they contained sufficient sadness and pain to make the comic triumph well-earned. One long cry of anguish about the price of fame comes perilously close to self-pity. And self-abuse. CPea.