The Legend of 1900 is still fresh; like the dawning of a new age, it feels like an awakening.

Visually dazzling, touching and funny.

Tantalizingly structured to intrigue us right from the start.

An enchanting, staggeringly beautiful epic at sea, is poetry in motion.

On one level it is highly intimate, yet it is also universal, a modern metaphor for the human condition and the precariousness of life itself.

There is one scene in The Legend of 1900 that is easily worth the price of admission. It finds the ship heeling in an Atlantic storm. In the ballroom Roth plays the piano as it moves and slides in an eerie waltz around the floor.

Foggy allegories and misty metaphors.

The sort of movie that both rewards and tries your patience.

A painstakingly crafted nonrealist story, which doesn't seem to imply anything beyond what it depicts.

The sense of loss aroused by the film is oceanic.

It's usually a good idea to avoid anything billed as ''a fable,'' but The Legend of 1900 offers almost enough merits to warrant an exception

This one is often more interesting than involving.

Has moments of great imagination.

Its protagonist haven't enough emotional substance to carry them through the long, darkly lit introspective sequences.