Stardust Memories (Woody Allen, 1980)

 For many people Woody is the guy who makes the same movie over and over again with the neurotic lover who can't decide if he wants to have sex or go to the bathroom. Truth couldn't be more far away than that opinion. Woody in reality is a filmmaker who has made a miraculous variety of movies. Yes there is a pattern to his movies about the neurosis of the modern individual but it is pictured in quite different ways from film to film. Stardust Memories is by far one of his best movies and for me his most underappreciated work till this day. In this movie we see a straightly more poetic side of the famous auteur, who mixes dream with reality in a black-and-white comedy drama that will follow you for many years after the screening. Made with the exquisiteness of a director and writer who knows exactly what he wants and how to get there, Stardust Memories is a film for the soul and for the senses and that's why so many people have forgotten that movie or even worse saw it and didn't get anything from it. 

Comments about art, audience and critics are been mixed with dreamy sequences with black-and-white hot-air balloons that fly in the air. Stardust Memories is from the movies that ask from the spectator to be artistic to his very soul, to be gentle and fragile in order to fully get the feeling of the movie. And I must add that it's quite a shame that a whole generation of film goers will probably never see that movie, if not, not even know that exists, and will continue to believe that Woody is only Annie Hall and Manhattan. Stardust Memories is a movie that speaks to the sensitivity of the spectator, to the thing that we all have inside of us and can't be put in plain words and it's an example of highly alluring and charming cinema that has been put to the shelf with forgotten art, only because the majority of the audience didn't even get what Woody was trying to say and they mistook the film for a straight insult of their taste and personality. It's not the first time that a major film, a major artistic piece falls short due to the reaction of the audience and I must say that is not the first time that I feel so disappointed by people and the way that they perceive things.