Blu-rays of the Week
Le Amiche
(Criterion)
Although one
of his lesser works, this 1955 melodrama was an important stepping stone for
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni on his way to cinematic maturity: this study
of young women and their relationship troubles hints at his later mastery in L’Avventura and L’Eclisse, for example. Unsurprisingly, Criterion’s transfer of
this brooding black-and-white drama is stellar, but its extras are lacking:
there’s a relatively mundane conversation on Antonioni between two scholars and
a slightly more informative interview with another scholar.
(Intervision)
Director Francisco
Lara Polop’s 1984 soft-core flick, while it has a certain cache among that era’s
B-movie cognoscenti, is merely a competently made, indifferently acted tale of
an comely heiress who’s been kidnapped by a band of lesbian terrorists. Nice
location shooting and Jewel Shepard’s endearing pseudo-Marilyn Monroe bimbo as
our eponymous heroine make it watchable, along with ample—but by no means
explicit—nudity and sex scenes. There’s a decent hi-def transfer.
Every Thing
Will Be Fine
(IFC)
German director
Wim Wenders has made some clunkers, but his latest, impossibly pretentious exercise
in dramatic ponderousness leaps to the top of that list. James Franco
sleepwalks through the movie as a writer whose life is altered by a fatal car
accident, while Rachel McAdams, Marie-Josee Croze and ever-sullen Charlotte
Gainsbourg suffer quietly at his side. It seems like Terrence Malick-lite, but
even Malick’s failures like To the Wonder
(also with poor McAdams) had lustrous visuals and eclectic music on the
soundtrack to compensate. Not so Wenders: Alexandre Desplat’s diverting score
notwithstanding, Wenders’ usual impeccable control deserts him, shooting this
in 3D for no discernable reason. It all looks fine on Blu; extras are
interviews with cast (but not Franco) and Wenders and behind-the-scenes
footage.
(PBS)
In the second
season of this offbeat detective series, Reverend Sidney Chambers and inspector
Geordie Keating consolidate their personal and professional relationships as
they investigate another bizarre series of crimes. If the plots are less than
original, it doesn’t matter because the real reason to watch is the chemistry between James
Norton and Robson Green, who invest their parts with as much authenticity and
even humor as possible under the circumstances. The hi-def transfer is quite
good; extras include featurettes and interviews.
Under the Sun
of Satan
(Cohen Film Collection)
Maurice Pialat’s
magnificent 1987 chamber film is an intimate character study of a failing priest
with a dark side and the young woman who may be his salvation—or damnation. Based
on a novel by Georges Bernardos (whose work was also the basis of Robert
Bresson’s Mouchette and Diary of a Country Priest), Pialat’s masterpiece
has absorbing performances by Gerard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire and Pialat
himself as an older priest who gives Depardieu guidance. The film’s grainy
hi-def transfer is illuminating; substantial extras—a second disc’s worth—comprise
new and vintage interviews, along with an hour of deleted scenes and on-set
footage.
(Magnolia)
In Tobias
Lindholm’s powerful drama, parts of a Danish soldier’s life are shown in straightforward
yet subtle detail: as he leads his men through horrible firefights, his absence
from his family back home forces his wife to raise their children alone; later,
he is put before a civilian tribunal after he is accused of war crimes for
calling an air strike that kills innocent children. Not in the least didactic,
Lindholm’s film is a raging inferno of emotion and adrenaline, culminating in a
courtroom sequence remarkable for its nuanced and compelling view of all sides.
Pilou
Asbæk—so good in the TV series Borgen—is brilliant as our hero, and Tuva Novotny matches him scene for scene as his wife. The hi-def transfer is first-rate;
the paucity of extras includes brief servicemen and -women’s reactions, short
making-of and Lindholm interview.
DVDs of the Week
A French
Village—Complete 3rd Season
(MHZ)
With the war on
for several years now, the inhabitants of the Nazi-controlled village of Villeneuve must contend with a new wrinkle: the rounding up of Jews in
the local school. The endless greys of wartime have rarely been examined so
thoroughly and even entertainingly as in this series, and the cumulative dramatic
impact of its third season is enormous. Once again, the acting is superlative
from top to bottom, with standouts Robin Renucci as the town’s decent mayor and
Audrey Fleurot as his unfaithful wife.
(Icarus)
Belgian
director Chantal Akerman’s suicide last fall came directly following the death
of her beloved mother, and her poignant if meandering final documentary explores
that relationship in depth. Natalia was a Holocaust survivor who was always Chantal’s
reservoir of strength, shown in the many conversations between them, whether in
person or via Skype. Although the film, like so many others of Akerman, wears
out its welcome before it ends, its tragic real-life epilogue gives it a gravitas
missing from much of her oeuvre.
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