ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS – VISCONTI      EUREKA EKA40257

The great Italian theatre and cinema director and writer Luchino Visconti di Modrone was born into a wealthy, aristocratic Milanese family in 1906. His privileged upbringing exposed him to art, music and theatre, meeting people such as composer Giacomo Puccini, conductor Arturo Toscanini and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio. At the age of 30, he went to Paris and began his film-making career as third assistant director in Jean Renoir’s Une Partie de Campagne. Visconti briefly visited Hollywood before returning to Rome, where he became part of the group associated with the journal Cinema. He sold some of the family jewels in 1943 to fund his first film, Ossessione, which proved a big success. After being imprisoned briefly by the Gestapo for allowing his palazzo to be used by the Communist Resistance during the Second World War, Visconti resumed his film career with La terra trema and the delightful Bellissima before going on to make such classics as The Leopard and Death in Venice. The neo-realist Rocco and His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi fratelli) was completed in 1960, when it won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Special Prize at the Venice Film Festival. This epic study of family, sex and betrayal follows the lives of a mother and her sons as they struggle to adjust to metropolitan life in Milan after moving from Italy’s rural south. The shock of the new is violent and immediate. The mother meddles, a whore beguiles, brother faces brother and blood-ties come undone. Claudia Cardinale has one of her earliest film roles and there are outstanding performances by Alain Delon as the saintly Rocco, Renato Salvatori as doomed Simone, and Annie Girardot, touching as the tragic Nadia. The fine Nino Rota score influenced Coppola’s Godfather films and the superbly shot boxing sequences foreshadow Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. This double DVD in Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series features Visconti’s masterpiece newly restored to its original Italian-language form of almost three hours. A host of extras includes newsreels from 1960, interviews with cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, Annie Girardot and Claudia Cardinale, the original Italian trailer, two excellent documentaries and a 40-page booklet. Rocco and His Brothers is a brilliant, complex and intensely moving film with some of the most powerful images ever seen, including the famously haunting final shot. Unmissable.

LEOLO - LAUZON    NETWORK

The Palme d’Or-nominated off-beat comedy drama, Leolo, is set in a gloomy and squalid tenement block in Montreal, where a boy lives with his dysfunctional, neurotic and highly strung family. His mind roams free and wild amidst the perversion and chaos that his family life throws at him. There is very little respite from the tidal waves of various problems that seem to constantly afflict one or more of the members of the family. To Leolo, these people might as well be strangers with whom he just happens to share a living space. He obsessively keeps notebooks in which he constructs a parallel universe. This dream world is beautiful, grand, and stars his first love Bianca, the sexy but remote Italian neighbour. A most extraordinary rites of passage film, director Jean-Claude Lauzon takes the audience on a journey that is in turn intense, funny, surreal and ultimately tragic. Leolo won the award for best screenplay at Vancouver International Film Festival and was named Best Canadian Film at the Toronto Film Festival. It features a strong, internationally renowned cast that includes singer Ginette Reno (making her film debut as Leolo’s mother), Julien Guiomar as the grandmother and Maxime Collin, giving an amazing performance as Leolo. Tom Waits features on the soundtrack of this audacious, lyrical and rewarding film, directed with passion and intelligence.

UNDER THE VOLCANO - HUSTON     MR BONGO FILMS

Malcolm Lowry’s 1947 semi-autobiographical novel, Under the Volcano, tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, a self-destructive alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac (recognizably Cuernavaca). John Huston’s 1984 film takes on the formidable task of translating this complex book to the screen. Set on the eve of the Second World War in 1939 and starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Andrews and Katy Jurado, the film received Academy Award nominations for best actor (Finney) and best music (original score by Alex North). Under the Volcano follows Firmin’s final day as he stumbles through the town’s day of the dead fiesta, attempting to reconnect with his estranged wife Yvonne (Bisset). We are taken through one day in a life of alcoholic disrepair and obscurity. Firmin’s self-destructive behaviour is perhaps a metaphor for a menaced civilization, and is a source of perplexity and sadness to his nomadic, idealistic half-brother, Hugh (Anthony Andrews), and to Yvonne, who has returned with hopes of healing him and their broken marriage. Albert Finney gives one of the finest and most nuanced performances, described by critic Roger Ebert as ‘the best drunk performance I’ve ever seen in a film’. Huston’s film is essentially a one-man tour de force but Finney has strong support from Jacqueline Bisset and it’s always good to see Katy Jurado.

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON - HSIAO-HSIEN    NETWORK

Flight of the Red Balloon (Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge) tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. Shot on location in Paris and commissioned by the Musee d’Orsay, Taiwanese arthouse director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s first western film is based on the famous 1956 classic French short The Red Balloon, directed by Albert Lamorisse. Suzanne, superbly played by Juliette Binoche, is a mother snowed under with her work for her puppet shows, the classes she teaches and the two children, Simon and Louise, who she has been raising alone since their father left. To help ease her burden, the frazzled mother takes in a young babysitter (Song Fang), who is a film student at Paris University. On his way home from school, seven-year-old Simon (Simon Iteanu) leads her through the streets and cafés of his neighbourhood and they are soon sharing an imaginary world in which a strange red balloon follows them, even in the exhibition space of the Musée d’Orsay. While Suzanne is involved in a court case concerning her annoying tenant downstairs who refuses to pay his rent or leave, Song helps her get a grip by adding a calmer Asian perspective to her frazzled life. Flight Of The Red Balloon is a leisurely, beautifully observed film that delicately explores the human condition. Network has also released two 1950s Albert Lamorisse classics on a single DVD: THE RED BALLOON / WHITE MANE. The Red Balloon (Le Ballon rouge), filmed in the picturesque Ménilmontant district of Paris, is a charming 34-minute fantasy in which a young boy called Pascal (played by the director’s son, Pascal Lamorisse) finds a large helium-filled red balloon while on his way to school one morning. The balloon seems to have a personality of its own and becomes his friend as they have adventures together. With gorgeous photography, brilliant special effects, haunting score and unforgettable ending, this is a treat for children and adults alike. White Mane (Crin Blanc) is set in the France’s wild Camargue region. Ranchers pursue wild horses led by the magnificent stallion, ‘White Mane’, who constantly escapes capture. A small boy witnesses the horse’s persecution and joins him in his fight for peace and freedom. This groundbreaking 1953 classic was a winner of the prestigious Palm D’Or in Cannes. view trailer

THE LIAR & JACKPOT 2     BLUEBELL BLB020

Mika Kaurismäki’s first film Valehtelija (The Liar) was made a diploma project during his studies at film school in Munich, Germany. An enjoyable pastiche of Breathless and other French New Wave films, it caused a sensation when first shown in Finland in 1981. Aki Kaurismaki, who wrote the script, plays Ville Alfa, a selfish young man with exceptional lying skills and a way with words. He spends his days hanging out with intellectuals, cadging money, trying to pick up girls and failing to write the great Finnish working-class novel. He treats most people, including his girlfriend, badly yet somehow remains sympathetic. The inspiration of Godard is evident throughout and the black and white photography almost transforms Helsinki into Paris of the 60s. This DVD includes Mika Kaurismäki’s short second film, Jackpot 2, as well as an interview with the director. Bluebell has also released Kaurismäki’s award-winning black comedy ZOMBIE AND THE GHOST TRAIN (BLB021) made in 1994. Described as part docu-fiction, part Hamlet-style tragedy and just a bit screwball, this unusual road movie tells the story of a fragile, aimless young man called Zombie as he struggles to get a grip on the world. Lost and drinking too much, he finds himself taking a desperate journey from Helsinki to Istanbul. Kaurismäki cast is made up mostly of musicians and they all give totally convincing performances, especially Silu Seppälä as Zombie and Marjo Leinonen as his girlfriend. Extras include theatrical trailers and a revealing interview with the director.

LA RONDE - OPHULS      SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD 3143

Max Ophüls was born Maximillian Oppenheimer in Germany in 1902 but used the pseudonym Ophüls (the umlaut was usually dropped when he later worked abroad). He began as an actor but soon moved into production, becoming creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna. He started in films as a dialogue director under Anatole Litvak and directed his first film in 1931 (the comedy short, Dann schon lieber Lebertran). When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Ophüls, being a Jew, fled to France, where he became a French citizen. After the fall of France, he travelled via Switzerland and Italy to the USA, where he made several distinguished films before returning to Europe in 1950. Most of his films feature characteristically smooth camera movements, with complex crane and tracking shots that have influenced many other directors, including Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Following the successful release of the first four films in Second Sight’s Max Ophuls Collection come two more highly acclaimed films. The irresistible La Ronde is an elegant adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s play of the same name. A series of character vignettes, set in Vienna in the early 1900s, is woven together by the Raconteur (Anton Walbrook). The starry cast also includes Simone Signoret, Simone Simon, Daniel Gélin, Danielle Darrieux and Jean-Louis Barrault. Ophuls uses an old-fashioned merry go round to foreshadow the film’s events, in which each segment introduces a new character, who then moves on to an affair with another as the carousel spins, revealing itself as the metaphor for the very nature of human relationships. La Ronde won the 1952 BAFTA for Best Film and was nominated for two Academy Awards that year. Bonus features include ‘Working with Max Ophuls’ (Daniel Gelin on La Ronde), ‘Circles of Desire’ (Alan Williams) and an audio commentary by Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls. CAUGHT (SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD 3144) is an underrated film noir in which Leonora Eames (Barbara Bel Geddes in her best performance), thinking she is living out her childhood dream of marrying a man worth millions, marries the wealthy Smith Ohrig (the always excellent Robert Ryan), unaware that her new husband is a cruel monster who forces her to remain a prisoner in her own home. In an effort to escape her miserable existence she falls in love with society doctor Larry Quinada (James Mason) but only a miracle can free her from her life of lavish bondage. This magnificently photographed film shows the influence of Orson Welles on Ophüls’ work. DVD extras include a commentary by Lutz Bacher, author of Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios and a video essay by film historian Tag Gallagher. These are stylish, technically brilliant and hugely enjoyable films by one of cinema’s most admired directors.

IRINA PALM - GARBARSKI   SODA PICTURES

Marianne Faithful stars as middle-aged grandmother Maggie, desperate to provide a rare and expensive medical treatment for her cancer-stricken grandson. With all financial resources exhausted, Maggie knows she must take drastic action and when a ‘Hostess Wanted’ sign catches her eye, she naively stumbles into a Soho sex club. The true job description is a surprise for the respectable widow, even if she isn’t a prude, but the unskilled Maggie accepts this as her fastest way to raise the urgently needed cash. She adopts the pseudonym of Irina Palm as she satisfies her anonymous customers but keeps the money’s origins secret from even her own suspicious son. Discovery is inevitable though and Maggie finds she must confront provincial hypocrisy’s ugly face, as well as question her own morals. Also starring Jenny Agutter as a nosy friend who has had an affair with Maggie’s husband and Serbian actor Miki Manojlovic as the sex club owner, Sam Garbarski’s film has provokeed a wide range of responses. It received rave reviews at the Berlin Film Festival but British critics were less generous. Despite the occasional unintended laugh, this is a thought-provoking film and Marianne Faithful just about manages not to look glamorous as the widow with an unusual occupational injury. Extras include interviews with cast and crew.

UNDER THE BOMBS - ARACTINGI    ARTIFICIAL EYE

Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi’s film is the riveting account of a middle-class Lebanese woman’s search for her young son amid the devastation wrought by the Israeli air assault on the country in 2006. Aractingi, who witnessed the bombing in Beirut, responded remarkably quickly to the Israeli attack and began shooting only ten days later, with just four actors and little in the way of a script. Most of the film’s protagonists, such as journalists, UN soldiers and civilians caught up in the devastation, are played by the individuals themselves. This, together with real-life settings and improvised dialogue, gives the drama a powerful documentary-like authenticity. Zeina (Nada Abu Farhat) is a well-off Shiite Muslim ex-pat living in Dubai, whose son had been staying with her sister in southern Lebanon when war broke out. She travels to her homeland to look for him, arriving on the day of the ceasefire, and hires a taxi to take her to the dangerous south. The driver, Tony (Georges Khabbaz) is a Christian and at first the pair seem to have little in common, but as their desperate search continues they grow closer and find mutual support in the chaos left behind by a messy, pointless little war. The film starts with genuine and frightening bomb footage and uses the resultant rubble as a backdrop. Director and co-writer Philippe Aractingi has made an exciting, affecting and compassionate film that is far more than an anti-Isralei diatribe. It was nominated for the Grand Jury prize at Sundance and received the EIUC Award at Venice. The film’s two leading actors are totally convincing as they reveal this odd couple’s increasingly close relationship with great skill and sensitivity. DVD extras include interviews with the impassioned director and with Nada Abou Farhat, as well as two trailers and a stills gallery. Highly recommended.

TROPICAL MALADY - WEERASETHAKUL     SECOND RUN DVD 034

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady is a romantic psychological drama set in Thailand. The film is in two parts – the first being a romance about two homosexual men and the second part a mysterious tale about a soldier lost in the woods. Keng (Banlop Lomnoi) is a young soldier assigned to a post in a small town in the country, where he has to investigate the mysterious killing of cattle at local farms. One day he meets Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) and the two men start taking trips together into the countryside. The film then suddenly shifts to a different story, about a soldier (played by Lomnoi) who is sent alone into the woods to find a lost villager. He encounters tigers and is taunted by the shape-shifting spirit of a shaman (Kaewbuadee again). This visionary film, originally titled Sud Pralad (meaning Strange Creature or Monster), exists in dual realms, exploring connected themes of love and desire in a radically different way. The conscious and the subconscious, the modern and the ancient, reality and myth; all become magically entwined in this hypnotic, mysterious drama. This strikingingly original film had a mixed reception when first screened at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, but went on to win the Jury Prize from a jury headed by Quentin Tarantino. It also won the 2004 São Paulo International Film Festival Critics Award and the 2005 Indianapolis International Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Directing. Lushly photographed, Tropical Malady is lyrical film with mesmerisingly beautiful images. Special Features with the DVD include Apichatpong’s 1997 short film, Thirdworld, an interview with the director, improved English subtitles, a stills gallery and storyboard sequence, and a booklet with an essay by film historian Tony Rayns. ‘A beguiling masterpiece’ - New York Sun.

LA ANTENA - SAPIR   DOGWOOF DOG201

Written and directed by the acclaimed Argentinian Esteban Sapir, La Antena (English: The Aerial) is dazzling and quirky sci-fi fantasy that echoes the work of Georges Méliès, Fritz Lang, Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. An entire mythical city has lost its voice. Mr. TV (played by Alejandro Urdapilleta), the powerful and weirdly-coiffed owner of the city’s only television channel, is carrying out a sinister, secret plan to subject all of the city’s inhabitants to his will forever. The film also features Florencia Raggi as singing sensation The Voice and Valeria Bertuccelli as her eyeless son who has secretly inherited his mother’s gift of speech. The boy teams up with his neighbour Ana (the charming Sol Moreno) and her divorced parents (Rafael Ferro and Julieta Cardinali) to take on the tyrant. La Antena is a visually stunning treat - made in monochrome - and silent almost throughout except for its musical score. The film was greatly admired when first shown at last year’s Rotterdam film festival and went on to become a considerable cult hit. Its challenging comic visions and bizarre originality have brought comparisons with Pan’s Labyrinth and the films of David Lynch, with a generous dash of German Expressionism. It is a thought-provoking allegory about the dangers of an over-powerful media and the horror of totalitarianism, zestfully and wittily told in an exciting and touching story. ‘Breathtaking in its audacity and imagination’ - Sight and Sound.

THE TOMORROW SHOW WITH TOM SNYDER: JOHN, PAUL, TOM & RINGO  SHOUT! FACTORY

This 2-DVD set contains John Lennon’s last televised interview, when he spoke frankly with Tom Snyder on America’s The Tomorrow Show on April 25, 1975. No one then suspected that he was about to take an extended break from public life, or could have predicted that the interview would be re-broadcast five years later - in memoriam. This was on December 9, 1980, the day after John Lennon’s tragic death. The show also includes interviews with journalist Lisa Robinson and Lennon friend and producer Jack Douglas, both clearly still in shock, making this a poignant reminder of the aftermath of his murder and the void it created. This tribute to John Lennon is one of three conversations Tom Snyder had with the former members of The Beatles. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were each enjoying solo careers of varying success at the times of their interviews, and their comments provide further insight into the effects of Beatlemania, drugs and their futures. In his 1981 interview, Ringo Starr discusses his film and music career, as well as his band mate and friend John Lennon. It also includes a snippet of Ringo’s music video for ‘Wrack My Brain’ and a guest appearance by actress Barbra Bach (by then Ringo’s wife). The 1979 interview via satellite from a stage in London features a relaxed Paul and Linda McCartney, Denny Laine and Laurence Juber, who were then enjoying great success with Wings, as well as the band’s music video for ‘Spin It On’. There is also a slightly incongruous but interesting interview with the stunning Angie Dickinson about her film and television projects.

WHAT A CARVE UP! - JACKSON     ANCHOR BAY ABD4481

Novel proof reader Ernie’s Uncle Gabriel has died but in order to claim his inheritance the highly-strung Ernie (Kenneth O’Connor) must spend the night in the ancestral family mansion in Yorkshire with the rest of his eccentric relatives. Ernie’s imagination has been affected by his constant immersion in cheap horror novels, but his wildest fears turn out to be justified when the guests begin to drop dead around him. Written by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton and directed by Pat Jackson, this very British farce is a successful blend of the Carry On and Ealing traditions at their best. Kenneth O’Connor is just right as Ernie and there is first-class support from a cast that includes the always brilliant Sid James, beautiful Shirley Eaton (soon to find fame appearing in a Bond film wearing nothing but a coat of paint), the sinister Donald Pleasence as a ‘zombie solicitor’, suave Dennis Price, Michael Gough as the shambling, Lurch-like butler (long before he became Alfred in the first four Batman films), Michael Gwynn, Frederick Piper as a scene-stealing hearse driver, a fleeting glimpse of an uncredited Adam Faith, and the delightful Esma Cannon as daffy Aunt Emily. Combining creepiness, laughs, suspense, innuendo and general silliness, this enjoyable romp is an under-valued gem waiting to be rediscovered. The film later inspired Jonathon Coe’s novel of the same name, satirising 1980s Thatcherite Britain and using the film to link together several plot strands.

AZUR & ASMAR: THE PRINCES’ QUEST - OCELOT  SODA SODA059

Acclaimed director Michel Ocelot has created this sumptuous new animation film for the whole family to enjoy. Once upon a time there were two children brought up by the same woman: Azur, the blonde, blued-eyed son of a nobleman, and Asmar, the dark-haired, dark-eyed son of the nanny. She sings to them and tells them many enchanting stories, their favourite being one about the Djinn fairy waiting to be rescued by a heroic prince. One dark day fate cruelly separates the boys. Some years later Azur sets out to rescue the Djinn fairy with the help of sparky Princesse Chamsous Sabah and a wily, scene-stealing scamp named Crapoux. Azur is reunited with Asmar but the boys have grown up to be rivals, finding themselves pitted against each other in their search to find the fairy. And so begins the Princes’ Quest - a fantastic adventure across magical, mythical lands and seas on a epic journey in which only one of them can triumph. The dazzling colour and design of the computer-generated animation is extraordinarily beautiful and this engaging story is full of excitement, passion and humour. There is also a timely moral about respect, tolerance, prejudice and open-mindedness. DVD extras include the original French-language version, an interview with the director, animation worksheets, a theatrical trailer and a gallery of stills. Best of all is an utterly captivating short animation called ‘The Princess and the Pendant’ made by Hartside Primary School.

THE LONG DAY CLOSES - DAVIES      BFI BFIVD749

Terence Davies was born in Liverpool - the youngest in a family of ten children - and after leaving school at sixteen worked for ten miserable years as a shipping-office clerk and accountant. After attending Coventry Drama School he set out to become a novelist and actor before directing his autobiographical debut film, Children. The Long Day Closes, now released by the BFI on DVD for the first time, is a lyrical portrait of his own working-class Catholic childhood in post war England. Eleven-year-old Bud escapes from shyness by finding solace in trips to the cinema and in the warmth of family life. But as he gets older, the agonies of the adult world; the casual cruelty of bullying, the tyranny of school and the dread of religion, begin to invade his life. Time and memory blend and blur through Davies’ fluid camerawork; slow tracking shots, pans and dreamlike dissolves combine to create the world of Bud’s imagination and the lost paradise of his childhood. Music permeates the film, as dialogue and songs create profound emotional effects. The minimal acting is perfect, especially by young Leigh McCormack as Bud and Marjorie Yates as his stoical mother. Mocked by some of his fellow pupils as a ‘fruit’, Bud’s growing awareness of his homosexuality is handled with great subtlety in this elegiac, stream-of-consciousness masterpiece. DVD extras include a commentary by Terence Davies and Director of Photography Mick Coulter, an interview with production designer Christopher Hobbs, behind-the-scenes footage of Davies directing, and an illustrated booklet with essays, director biography and credits. The BFI has also released THE TERENCE DAVIES TRILOGY (BFIVD752), a series of short films part-funded by the BFI and now restored by the BFI National Archive. Children was made in 1976 and after this abrupt introduction to filmmaking Davies took up a place at the National Film School. He completed Madonna and Child in 1980 before ending the story of his fictional alter ego, Robert Tucker in 1983 with Death and Transfiguration, featuring a heart-rending performance by the frail Wilfrid Brambell. These uncompromising films, like those of Bill Douglas, explore many of the themes the director would develop in his later work. Made in stark black and white, Davies’ narrative slips between childhood, middle age and death, shaping the raw materials of his own life into a rich tapestry of experiences and impressions. Over the course of the films, we witness the emergence of Davies’ unique talent and style, the refinement of his technique, and the increasing audaciousness of a director growing in confidence. The films were subsequently screened together at festivals in Europe and the United States, winning many awards. Now available for the first time on DVD, with special features that include a commentary by the director, an interview with Davies by Geoff Andrew, and an illustrated booklet with essays by Derek Jarman and Jennifer Howarth. Because of funding difficulties and his refusal to compromise, Terence Davies’ output has been regrettably limited, making these new DVDs even more treasurable.

EUROPA EUROPA - HOLLAND    ARROW FCD328

Set in the early days of the Second World War, Polish film maker Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa tells the improbable yet fact-based story of 13-year-old Solomon Perel (Marco Hofschneider), a German Jew who survived the Holocaust by concealing his identity, literally within enemy ranks. When Nazi thugs smash into the Perels’ house, Solly manages to escape with his family to Poland, from where he is again forced to run, this time with his brother. They become separated and Solly falls into the clutches of the Nazis. He quickly realises that his only chance for survival is to convince them that he is a pure-blooded Aryan, hoping that they never find out the truth. He poses as a ‘war hero’ and eventually becomes a member of the Hitler Youth. Based on Perel’s amazing autobiography, Agnieszka Holland’s beautifully photographed film is an epic drama that features fine performances, especially by the handsome Hofschneider as Solly and Julie Delpy as his frustrated lover. The director uses exquisite pacing to build ever greater tension and her screenplay for this unique and moving film was nominated for an Academy Award.

THE PATRICE LECONTE COLLECTION   SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD 3141

The respected and versatile French director and screenwriter Patrice Leconte was born in Paris in 1947. While attending film school in the 1960s he began working as a cartoonist before getting the chance to direct his first feature in 1976. Most of his early films were comedies – extremely successful in France but little seen abroad. This changed in 1989 when the stylish Monsieur Hire was shown at the Cannes film festival and this radical departure from his previous work brought Leconte international attention. Based on a Georges Simenon story, the film is a psychological drama in which a girl is murdered and police suspect the reclusive Monsieur Hire. Living a mundane existence, his greatest pleasure is to watch Alice in the opposite apartment. Starring Michel Blanc and the beautiful Sandrine Bonnaire, this enigmatic tale of love and obsession is played with haunting subtlety and has an unforgettable ending worthy of Hitchcock. Since Monsieur Hire, Leconte has had further success internationally with films such as the lavish, Oscar-nominated Ridicule (with Charles Berling and Fanny Ardant) and L’homme du train, currently being remade by Hollywood. This splendid five-disc box set from Second Sight includes Ridicule and Monsieur Hire as well as three other films by Leconte: His passionate fairy tale, The Hairdresser’s Husband, the erotic Le Parfum D’Yvonne and the darkly comic Tango. Extras include a long and revealing documentary, ‘Leconte On Leconte’, and one of the director’s best short films, La Famille Heureuse.

GARAGE - ABRAHAMSON    SODA SODA066

Lenny Abrahamson’s 2007 award winning Irish drama is an acutely observed tragi-comedy about loneliness and fitting in. Regarded by his neighbours as a harmless misfit, eliciting idle kindness, benign tolerance and occasional abuse, the gentle Josie has spent all his adult life as the caretaker of a crumbling petrol station on the outskirts of a small town in the mid-west of Ireland. He has a limited, lonely life yet remains amiable, relentlessly optimistic and, in his way, happy. Then over the course of a summer, Josie’s world changes when a teenage assistant, David, comes to work with him. They open up to each other and suddenly the lonely adult is drinking cans down at the railway tracks with the local kids. He is also awakened to needs in himself that have never been met as Carmel (perfectly played by Anne-Marie Duff) from the local shop stirs feelings within him that he struggles to name. He becomes even more aware of his essential loneliness as events spiral and and take a tragic turn, changing Josie’s simple life forever. Comedian Pat Shortt gives a remarkable performance as the good-natured Josie and Peter Robertson’s atmospheric cinematography lovingly captures the beauty of the location. This is a funny, compassionate and heartbreaking film, brilliantly acted and scripted throughout. Extras include a commentary by Lenny Abrahamson and the film’s writer, Mark O’Halloran.

BLEAK MOMENTS – LEIGH   SODA SODA074

Mike Leigh studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company before becoming a theatre director and playwright in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he made the transition to television with classic plays such Nuts in May and Abigail’s Party. His projects begin without a script; instead, he sets out a basic premise, and lets the ideas develop through improvisation by the actors, who explore their character. The experimental Bleak Moments was Leigh’s debut feature - a haunting and disturbing study of a young woman’s isolation. Released in 1971, it won the Golden Leopard in Locarno the following year and is available now for the first time on DVD. Secretary Sylvia (Anne Raitt) spends her evenings drinking sherry and taking care of her mentally disabled sister, Hilda (brilliantly played by Sarah Stephenson). Lonely for male company, she meets a repressed schoolteacher Peter (Eric Allan) and the shy, guitar-playing Norman (Mike Bradwell), who has rented her garage to print copies of a magazine. Peter and Sylvia go out for a meal at a wincingly inhospitable Chinese restaurant while Sylvia’s annoying fellow office worker Pat (Joolia Cappleman) looks after Hilda. Back home, Sylvia makes an unsuccessful pass at Peter, who awkwardly declines and leaves. Norman then quits the garage, leaving Sylvia and Hilda once more to face the boredom and loneliness of their lives. Bleak Moments fully lives up to its title but there are undercurrents of dark humour that become more apparent with a second viewing. The unique Mike Leigh acting style is already in evidence, with a memorable performance by the Liz Smith in her first important screen role. A fascinating commentary by the director is included as an extra.

THE ESSENTIAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN   DELTA 89149

Charlie Chaplin’s principal character was ‘The Tramp’ (known as ‘Charlot’ in France), a vagrant with the refined manners and dignity of a gentleman. An unmistakeable toothbrush-moustached character wearing a tight coat, over-sized trousers and shoes, and a derby hat, carrying a bamboo cane, his image remains immortal and universally recognised. This superb ten volume DVD collection contains some of Chaplin’s finest films as well as ‘Chaplin - His Life and Work’, a loving and leisurely-paced documentary that includes film excerpts along with reflections on Shakespeare and Jack the Ripper. Titles on the other nine discs include Mabel’s Married Life, Laffing Gas, Face On The Barroom Floor, The Landlady’s Pet, The Fatal Mallet, The Knockout, The New Janitor, The Rival Mashers, Musical Tramp, A Fair Exchange, His New Job, A Night Out, The Champion, In The Park, The Tramp, The Bank, Shanghaied, A Night In The Snow, A Burlesque On Carmen, Police, The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A.M., The Count, The Pawnshop, Behind The Screen, The Rink, Easy Street, The Cure and The Immigrant. This collection forms a marvelous tribute to the greatest comedian of them all, currently receiving an overdue critical and popular revival. Highly recommended.

L’AVVENTURA – ANTONIONI    MR BONGO FILMS

Michelangelo Antonioni’s visually stunning L’avventura (The Adventure), made in 1960, stars the beautiful Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti. Notable for its slow pacing and careful composition, and for its unusual narrative structure, the film was produced on location in Italy under difficult financial and physical conditions and became the first part of a trilogy that also includes La notte and L’eclisse. The superb cinematography is by Aldo Scavarda. In L’avventura, a group of rich Italians go out on a small boat to a deserted volcanic island in the Mediterranean. One of them, Anna (Lea Massari), who had been the main character up to that point goes missing. Her boyfriend, Sandro, and Claudia, Anna’s friend, then try without success to find her and while looking develop a powerful attraction for each other. After they become lovers, they all but forget about the missing Anna. In 1962, this brilliant, subtle and enigmatic film - Antonioni's first international success - was runner-up in Sight and Sound’s poll of the top ten films of all time, coming closer than anything else to beating Citizen Kane. ‘A masterpiece’ - Time Magazine. Also available from Mr Bongo Films is Antonioni’s intriguing and mysterious IDENTIFICAZIONE DI UNA DONNA (‘Identification of a Woman’). Made in 1982, it tells of a Roman film director (Tomas Milian) who has relationships with two women (played by Daniela Silverio and Christine Boisson) in the course of his research for a new film. This is a welcome DVD release for one of the great Italian director’s most ambiguous films, which has links with earlier features such as Blow Up and The Passenger. Beautifully photographed by Carlo di Palma - especially the scenes set in a fog - this is essential viewing for all Antonioni devotees.

FORTY SHADES OF BLUE – IRA SACHS    ARTIFICIAL EYE ART319DVD

Legendary soul music music producer Alan James (played with great presence by Rip Torn) lives in Memphis with his beautiful young Russian girlfriend Laura (Dina Korzun) and their three-year-old son. They have an affluent life but Laura feels lonely, isolated and confused. When Alan’s estranged adult son from a previous marriage, Michael (Darren E. Burrows), returns home to Memphis for the first time in many years a dangerous relationship develops between him and Laura, until she is eventually forced to make a profound decision about what she wants from life. Writer/director Ira Sachs’s intelligent, cleverly crafted screenplay, together with effective cinematography and a great soundtrack (featuring the songs of Bert Berns) allows the story and characters to develop with an almost Antonioni-like slowness. The acting is superb throughout, especially by Rip Torn and the stunning Dina Korzun, previously seen in Last Resort. Her character’s inner struggles are wonderfully suggested in a performance that is both convincing and moving. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Forty Shades of Blue is a poignant story of three trapped, lonely people that offers no easy answers but reaches a hauntingly memorable conclusion. Not to be missed.