Movie Review: Marianne & Leonard — Words of Love

4 stars out of 5

I’ll never hear the song “So Long, Marianne” quite the same way again. What a sweet and sad love story this documentary is! I’ve been a Leonard Cohen fan since my mid-20s — “Bird on a Wire” was the first that really got me — but I never knew too much about him. His voice was soft, then got gravelly; he lived in a monastery for a while; he wrote “Hallelujah.” And I guess he was Canadian?

So this film was a welcome opportunity to learn a lot more, even if ultimately, it’s a love letter to Marianne Ihlen — Cohen’s great muse — from the movie’s director, Nick Broomfield.

We begin in the earliest 1960s on the sun-dappled island of Hydra, in Greece. Marianne is there with her husband Axel and their son Little Axel. Leonard is there too, the privileged young writer trying to focus on his work. The island was full of writers, artists, painters, all seeking inspiration. It was also a time of free love and so, soon enough, Marianne and Leonard are together. We have archival footage because the great documentarian D.A. Pennebaker was there too. So was Broomfield, and as he admits early on, was briefly another of Marianne’s lovers.

Cohen emerges as a fascinating individual, lover of women, a spiritual searcher, depressive, a loner, a bit of a dick and yet I could relate somehow? There’s an anecdote that rattled me, where he sends word to Marianne to leave Hydra, bring her son, come live with him… yet as soon as Leonard says it, he doesn’t want it anymore. He just needed to say it.

The most clear-headed (some might say jaded) presence in the film is Aviva Layton, widow of Cohen’s poetry mentor. She definitively states that a creative soul can never be a good spouse, as they’ll always care more about the work.

And where did this leave Marianne? Not a painter, writer, or musician, she struggled for self-identification on Hydra. (The island also plays a major role here: a paradise that seems to doom those who return to the “real world.”) Marianne envisioned a happily-ever-after with Leonard though it was not to be. Realizing such things can take a long time.

Yet… the flame never went out. Love never dies they say, and here we see it glimmer on through the decades, and it’s heartbreaking and wonderful. Nick Broomfield felt it too, poor sod, and thus we get this very special remembrance.