The film begins with Allen talking to camera, in the character of Alvy Singer, a Jewish comedian who is dismally unsuccessful with women. The film goes on to illustrate this using examples from his life, particularly his doomed relationship with Annie Hall (Keaton), a WASP singer. Alvy jokes, evades, lies, fantasises and makes excuses to hide the fact that he is responsible for breaking up every relationship he has ever had. It's a bleak story in many ways - the working title for the film was "Anhedonia", which is the Greek term for an inability to appreciate the joy of being in love - and it would be unbearably sad if it were not for the fact that Woody Allen is one of the funniest writers of the past forty years. The film is packed with unforgettable one-liners and witty observations on the perils of everyday life. Everyone remembers, for example, the scene where Allen discusses the irritations of standing in front of a bore in a queue for a movie.

The brilliant script is matched with some surprising and adventurous choices in the direction. Characters talk to the audience, the narrative shifts back and forth in time, the film becomes a cartoon, there is use of split screen - it's as if Allen is finally discovering the exciting possibilities of narrative film making as opposed to the string of sketches that made up his previous work. The editor, Ralph Rosenbaum, revealed in his memoirs that editing the film was chaotic because there was so much footage. The smoothness of the final product is a tribute to the technical skill of Allen's collaborators, and it's certainly the vital bridge from the scrappy brilliance of Love And Death to the elegant simplicity of Manhattan. There are sketch scenes in Annie Hall but it still seems all of a piece in a way Allen's earlier films do not, possibly because there is a thematic consistency throughout.

Woody Allen is an acquired taste, but his performance in this film is impressive because he is simultaneously playing himself and not playing himself. The relationship between this film and real life is a matter for conjecture. Allen had recently broken up from Diane Keaton in real life, and Keaton's real family name was Hall. There is an intimacy and chemistry between Allen and Keaton which is vital to the success of the film, but there's also a universal truth to the relationship which is not necessarily autobiographical. The first date is a mortifyingly accurate scene, as both try to impress each other with meaningless statements, and there are similarly truthful moments when Alvy visits the Hall family for lunch and when they decide to separate.

The film is more psychologically complex than some of Allen's later work, and if Alvy is, in some ways, a self portrait, he is a surprisingly critical one. Crucially, Alvy is not a very likeable character in many ways, and Annie is not made the villain of the relationship - compare this to the demonisation of Mia Farrow in Husbands And Wives. Ultimately, Alvy becomes the victim of his own insistence on analysing everything to death, and in the key scene we see how he has written a play based on his relationship with Annie, but has changed the ending to a happy one. In art, everything that is wrong with real life can be fixed. But that doesn't provide much consolation for the man who screws up every chance he has to be happy.

The film is full of memorable moments, many of them provided by the supporting cast. Diane Keaton infuriates some people in this role, but I find her hugely likeable. Her laugh when she tells a non-sequiteur of a story about her dead uncle is wonderfully natural, and she sings quite beautifully. Tony Roberts, an actor who should have become more famous, is very funny as Alvy's enormously egotistical friend who moves to LA. There are also nice bits by Shelley Duvall as a Rolling Stone journalist and a then-unknown Christopher Walken as Duane, Annie's suicidal brother. Look carefully for Jeff Goldblum and a blink-and-you'll-miss-her bit from Sigourney Weaver.

Incidentally, it's a film crammed with references to culture, both high and low. Balzac, Truman Capote, Ibsen, Groucho Marx, Marshall McLuhan, Beowulf, Billie Holiday, Freud, Wagner, Norman Rockwell, David and Bathsheba, the Maharishi, Leopold and Loeb, the Rosicrucians, Altamont, Kafka and Medea are just some of the references which litter the film. It's not essential to get them all, but the film is funnier the more you actually recognise. In particular, Leopold and Loeb provide the inspiration for one of the funniest and least tasteful lines in the film - but if you don't know what they did, the joke doesn't work.

For a film which is so constantly funny, Annie Hall is incredibly sad. But it's also easy to fall in love with, since Woody Allen manages to tell the truth about relationships in a way which is unpretentious and yet profound. What he didn't realise when he made his "serious" films such as Interiors is that he had already made significant observations about life in his more light-hearted work. Yet, in the middle of this serio-comic despair, there are some glorious belly laughs - my favourite being the perfectly timed sneezing on the cocaine.

The Disc

The film has been released in R2 by MGM along with two other Woody Allen films, the exquisite Manhattan and the exuberant Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex. R1 gets several others as well, in a box set, but in the case of Annie Hall it would seem that we have got a better deal.

The picture quality is generally good with some excellent aspects. Unlike the R1 disc, it is anamorphically enhanced. The aspect ratio is 1.85:1. I was very impressed with the sharpness of the picture and the richness of the colours. There is a little bit of artifacting - particularly noticeable in the concert scene of chapter 7 - but little grain or other noise.

The sound is the original mono soundtrack. I have no problem with this, and find that preferable to an artificial remix, especially with a film as dialogue-driven as this one. Incidentally, the opening and closing credits are supposed to be silent, so its not a fault with your player or TV ! Believe it or not, I know someone who complained to the management of the cinema when there was no opening credit music. Anyway, this soundtrack is perfectly acceptable.

There is one problem with the disc that I found annoying, but you wouldn't notice it unless you've seen the film before. In chapter 11, when Alvy and Annie are talking on the balcony, we are meant to see subtitles representing their thoughts on what they're saying - "I wonder what she looks like naked" etc. However, these do not appear unless you are already watching the film with subtitles. This is a serious flaw with the disc and I've already fired off an e-mail to MGM about it. Apparently, however, the flaw was also present on the R1 disc. This demonstrates the disinterest Woody Allen has in his films once they have been finished. A more involved director would have noticed this immediately, and there is no excuse for the mistake.

There is a booklet included with the disc which is, for a change, quite interesting, and the DVD menu has a silent film clip running along the top half of the screen. The only extra is the theatrical trailer which interestingly highlights the very brief appearances of Shelley Duvall, Carol Kane and Christopher Walken and contains a few of the one-liners from the film which, out of context, aren't all that amusing. There are a very acceptable 32 chapter stops and a wide range of languages and subtitles.

This is a great film, one of very few winners of the Oscar for Best Picture which still stand up in the cold light of day. If it's not quite as good as Manhattan that's because the later film is perfection and the present one is merely excellent. If you haven't seen it, give yourself a treat. If you have, then get it in a form which will last for several hundred more viewings.

Mike Sutton