DVD Review: Gainsbourg (2010)

Sadly, I don't have an arthouse cinema in the area, just the usual couple of multiplex cinemas, neither of which chose to screen Gainsbourg last year. Instead, they to chose show 3D versions of third-rate Hollywood flicks. Shame really, as Gainsbourg really is the type of foreign language movie that really could have appealed to a broader audience. But is it the definite record of Serge Gainsbourg? We'll deal with that later.

But let's start with the movie itself. Directed by Joann Sfar and starring Eric Elmosnino as the man himself, it's effectively the edited highlights of Gainsbourg's life, from his earliest days as a Jewish/Russian refugee in Paris during the World War II, ending as he drives into the sunset with his final partner, Bambou, bizarrely the grand-daughter of General Friedrich Paulus of the German army on the Russian front. I'm guessing that's some kind of symmetry.

DVD Review: The Seventh Seal (1957), 50th Anniversary Special Edition

Not before or since the 1957 release of Ingmar Bergman's haunting masterpiece The Seventh Seal has the momentous theme of humankind's search for existential meaning – within or outside a religious framework – been treated of with such furious grace, intelligence and insight. All cynicism concerning the re-release of a '50th Anniversary Digitally Remastered Edition,' in the year of the great filmmaker's death, must therefore be put on hold. Any reason to publicise or disseminate or roll back the technical decay of this supreme piece of cinematic art, whether or not the companies in question make some extra baksheesh by finagling historical contingency, is a good reason.

Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) is a crusading knight freshly returned to the shores of his native Sweden. He has lost all the moral certainty he left with, presumably having seen and participated in atrocities in the name of Christianity. The hypocrisy of this institution which teaches forbearance, peace and tolerance yet practices murder, torture and empire-like expansionism is too much for his reflective nature to bear without apostasy. He yearns for a meaning to life beyond the circumscribed and vague one offered by the Church.

DVD Review: Edvard Munch (1973)

Peter Watkins’ groundbreaking biopic of the troubled Norwegian proto-expressionist is an intense, cerebral work in which naturalistic performances and virtuoso direction make up for excessive running time and repetitive use of nonlinear chronology. Strong meat and long meat, the film demands attention and patience of its viewers, who are rewarded with an uncompromisingly downbeat portrayal of the circumstances (chiefly illness, critical rejection and heartbreak) which nurtured one of the great symbolists.

Like Watkins’ earlier The War Game (1965), commissioned then banned by the BBC, Edvard Munch is a faux-documentary with wilfully anachronistic elements. Much footage is shot hand-held, the principals often seem ‘aware’ that they are being filmed, and the narrative scenes alternate with to-camera interviews. That this modern format is co-opted to tell a late-19th-century story gives the piece an insistent subjectivity, a nagging intimation that all narrative is unreliable. It would likely have been approved of by arch-subjectivist Munch.

However the film takes as its primary source the previously unpublished diaries of Munch himself, read verbatim in voiceover by Geir Westby (whose turn as the artist is suitably ashen and taciturn). The defamiliarising form of the film is therefore offset by the historical accuracy of its content, allowing for a composite of breadth and intimacy effectively unique in biographical filmmaking.

Coming to DVD: Warner Cult Camp Classics

Warner Home Video is releasing a huge batch of campy cult classics on NTSC Region-1 DVD next week that are sure to entertain B-movie fans. The films are available in four different collections and each collection contains 3 different movies.

Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers: Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958), Giant Behemoth (1958), Queen of Outer Space (1958).
Cult Camp Classics 2 - Women in Peril: The Big Cube (1968), Caged (1950), Trog (1969).
Cult Camp Classics 3 - Terrorized Travelers: Hot Rods to Hell (1966), Skyjacked (1972), Zero Hour! (1957)
Cult Camp Classics 4 - Historical Epics: The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), Land of the Pharaohs (1955), The Prodigal (1955)

Many of the films have never been released on DVD before and most of them will be presented in Anamorphic Widescreen for the first time. Some titles will also include Audio Commentaries and Original Theatrical Trailers. Each volume retails for $29.98, but they are currently available from Amazon for a low pre-order price of $20.99.

For more information please see Amazon.

DVD Review: Kidnapped (1971)

With so many fine Scottish actors around at the time, you do wonder why Michael Caine was cast as Alan Breck in the 1971 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel Kidnapped, which has just been reissued on DVD.

In truth, Caine does a decent job of playing Scottish rebel, even if the accent drifts into the native cockney every now and again. Breck meets up with David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas), a young lad betrayed by his uncle and sold to sea. When the crew realises there's a price on Breck's head, they plot to hand him over to the authorities.

Breck and Balfour fight their way out, aided by the undermanned ship hitting the rocks - leaving them back on the Scottish coast. Both need to make it inland to Edinburgh, but need to avoid the Redcoats to make it one piece.