Lost Island of VHS...XIV

An Unforgettable Summer - Lucian Pintilie - 1994

Even though in the past few years there have been maybe half a dozen notable Romanian films most moviegoers in America can count the number of Romanian films they have seen on one hand. But prior to that the pickings were mighty slim. One film that some may have seen would have been An Unforgettable Summer. However, they likely wouldn't have seen it because it was Romanian or because it was directed by Lucian Pintilie. They would have seen it because it starred Kristin Scott Thomas who was hot off of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

 

The story, which takes place in the 1920's, is about an army officer who with this wife and three kids is essentially exiled to a garrison out near the Macedonian border. The officer is Captain Petre Dumitriu [Claudiu Bleont] who is a short, monocled man who follows orders without questioning them. His wife [Kristin Scott Thomas] makes the best of the situation by bringing a bit of sophistication to the household, and treating everyone - including the Bulgarian peasants who work for them - with respect. However, after they are there a short while, there is an attack by some Macedonian bandits who kill some of the Romanian soldiers on duty. Captain Dumitriu is commanded to circle the wagons and take no chances, which includes the strict instructions to execute the Bulgarian peasants. An order which his wife is adamantly opposed to. What's a Captain in the army supposed to do? Especially when on the one hand his wife will never respect him again and on the other his subordinates are chopping at his heels to get his job.

Pintilie directs the movie in a stately manner filling the frame in foreground and background and some nice camera movement. He also has some occasional dynamic flourishes [the movie's opening and ending in particular are amazing]. And, yes, Ms Thomas speaks Romanian in the movie. How can we not be impressed by this charming polyglot?

The film's conflict comes down to will Captain Dumitriu follow or disobey orders.

It's more than worth seeing it if you can find the VHS.

Lost Island of VHS...XIII

The Earthling - Peter Collinson - 1980

William Holden is dropped off on a dirt road that overlooks the Australian wilderness. He looks out over the valley, gives a gritty, toothy grin and says, 'I remember you!' Thus begins one of the few cool movies out there about the beauty of traveling through wild nature. But, of course, it is much more than that.

Holden plays Patrick Foley a man dying of cancer who wants to spend his final days trekking through the Australian forest to his boyhood home where he can die peacefully in the same place his parents are buried. After a brief, terse good-bye to a couple friends he sets off.

On his journey he comes across a ten-year old boy named Shawn whose parents have been killed in a horrible accident. Patrick would just as soon leave this kid be. But his instincts tell him to approach the boy and, at the very least, point him in the right direction to get back to civilization.

The boy [played by Ricky Schroder] is too shocked to hand his situation and being rather young and inexperienced with outdoor living he is completely at the mercy of the wilderness. Patrick has no choice, he's got to take the kid along for a while and teach him a few survival tricks. But this is where the movie gets good - because Patrick doesn't want to be bothered with helping this kid and he lets him know. Many conflicts arise including one moment where he leaves the kid to scale a cliff by himself as he's pursued by wild dogs.

Patrick's method is of the 'throw the kid in the pool to teach him to swim' school. He doesn't want to be a nice guy primarily because he doesn't want to form an attachment at this juncture of his life. He just wants to go die. Even when he gives advice he has a tough time being sincere. "There's nothing to be afraid of except the cold wind, which will kill you if you stand around looking stupid."

The Earthling keeps itself [barely] above the formulaic fray by basically sticking closer to reality than to the sentimentally one would expect from the material. Perhaps that's one reason it failed at the box office and is still not available on DVD. See it if you can find it. VHS can still be found and it is streaming on YouTube. [It was streaming on Netflix].

Lost Island of VHS...XII

Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man - Bernardo Bertolucci - 1981

This is far from Bertolucci's best film and since it came out after his streak of better films including The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and 1900 (1976) it can't help but fall short. However, seeing it this many years later - well away from the expectations that moviegoers had for a new Bertolucci film -- it is fairly good.

A wealthy cheese factory owner named Primo (Ugo Tognazzi) witnesses his son being kidnapped by terrorists. A while later they demand a ransom that will cost him a fortune - not to mention his business, which is already going bankrupt. His wife (Anouk Aimée) has no hesitation in wanting to pay the ransom. But he does. Especially when he begins to get the feeling that he is being set up and maybe there has been no kidnapping at all. He comes up with a plan - along with two young leftists who work in his factory - to get the ransom money and reinvest it into his factory.

The film was made in an era when radical youth groups were still a topic of discussion and that plays a central role in the film. Much like The Spider's Stratagem [in which a son looks for a father] this one deals with a subject Bertolucci had done before. But it also emphasizes characters having to make choices they are not comfortable with making.

It is not top drawer Bertolucci but it was shot by Carlo Di Palma whose style lends itself well to Bertolucci's sometimes operatic scenes. And the story is a good one - if not slightly cynical in nature. The acting overall is above average - Tognazzi is agreeable as the lead actor while Aimée seems to walk through her role.

So why is this self made factory owner a ridiculous man and what is the tragedy? In part, the two concepts go together. On the one hand, he cares more about his material possessions than his son, but on the other he has fallen into a trap that he should have known better than to get caught in. He too seems unaware of his responsibility as a father, a husband and an employer of many people who rely on his weekly wages. The tragedy is that he may lose everything but he decides to use the event as a way to save his business. His love for success means more than the safety of his son. However it may all be a ruse anyway and he seems to sense it.

This film is only available on VHS and [surprisingly] can still be found brand new on Amazon.

Lost Island of VHS...XI

Mädchen in Uniform - Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich - 1931

This German film was one of the first big foreign language 'art' films to play in the United States. It tells the tale of a 14-year-old girl named Manuela (Hertha Thiele) who is enrolled in a very strict boarding school by her aunt after the death of her mother.

While there she makes some new friends. But she also grows attached in both a romantic and a mother/daughter sense with one of a sympathetic teacher - Fraülein von Bernburg - whom all the girls have a crush on. This forbidden relationship leads to trouble for both her and the teacher.

If this film were made today the 'sensitive girl falls in love with a female Nazi teacher' angle would be played up as an exploitative steamy lesbian tale. No doubt in 1931 it was controversial as well. But seen today it is rather tame on the ‘lesbian’ angle and instead more of a solid story about a young vulnerable woman trying to make sense of the strict boarding school in the emerging militarized world of the Weimar Republic. Indeed, the lead actress years later was quoted as saying: "I really don't want to make a great deal ...or account for a film about lesbianism here. That's far from my mind, because the whole thing of course is also a revolt against the cruel Prussian education system."

I personally did not feel the film was any more a lesbian film than it was a 'heterosexual' film. It is pretty evident that the girls are rather harshly treated by all the teachers and most particularly by the school's Principle - who is as unsympathetic as you would expect a 'Nazi' character to be. And so the girls take a liking to Fraülein von Bernburg because she is so much fairer with them. In one scene one of the girls shows elation and relief when she realized that von Bernburg will be doling out punishment to her. It is not that von Bernburg will grant her some tenderness but rather the penalty will simply be less severe.

Fraülein von Bernburg becomes the equivalent of a mother, a sister and someone who relates to them. And they love her for that. It is also worth noting that there are no boys around. So any tenderness the girls show toward the teacher and she toward them need not necessarily be lesbian in nature. And, despite the one affectionate bedtime kissing scene, that is my reading of the film.

The film was remade in 1958 with Romy Schneider as the school girl.

A good long article here. And a review from After Ellen here. The original 1931 NY Times review is here.

Lost Island of VHS...X

The Stars Look Down - Carol Reed - 1940

When 'The Stars Look Down' came out in 1940 the British critics [as a whole] voted it the greatest British film ever made, Pauline Kael has called it Carol Reed's best film and Parker Tyler placed it as one of the 75 best foreign films ever made in his 1962 book 'Classics of The Foreign Film'.

So how does a film with such praise not even make Time Out's recent list of 'best British films'? Well, of course, it is partly because Reed went on to make a trio of terrific films that overshadowed this one and cemented his place in film history; Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and The Third Man. But it shows you how much time's change too.

History shows that it received a lukewarm reception for political reasons. You see, although Reed made a film [based on a novel by A. J. Cronin] that argues against the private ownership of mines and calls for the rights of the miners it also lays blame at the feet of both mine owners [who are presented as criminally greedy] and unions [who turn a blind eye to the dangers of the mine].

Michael Redgrave plays David an intelligent and conscientious young man who aspires to leave the small Welsh community where his family have lived and worked for generations. While away at a university he falls in love with an uncaring woman [Margaret Lockwood] who uses him to get back at another fellow she loves - who is an old friend of David's but who now happens to be in business with the corrupt mine owners. David leaves the school but finds much dissatisfaction in the unhappy marriage. When Redgrave learns that the owners are considering re-opening a particularly dangerous underground seam he speaks up as eloquently as he can to prevent it from happening. But no one will listen. His wife also leaves him telling him he needs to put all this mine business behind him.

The film pretty much stacks the deck against David [and the poor miners] and I have to admit I found the film a bit heavy-handed at times. But the film successfully fits into the category of realism and completely eschews Hollywood formula at every turn.

The film is not on DVD [in the US] and VHS is tough to find. I found a copy on VHS that someone had made [and was renting] from a PAL copy.

- A little history of the film here.

Lost Island of VHS...IX

The Clouded Yellow - Ralph Thomas - 1950

This is a terrific British thriller made in 1950 that has more than one comparison with the best of Hitchcock.

Trevor Howard plays David Somers a former British Secret Service agent who is in need of a break. He finds it by going to work off in the countryside cataloging butterflies for a couple at their estate. While there he befriends the couple's niece Sophie (Jean Simmons). The job is about as far removed as you can be from his former job. Until, that is, the local gamekeeper ends up murdered and Sophie becomes the prime suspect.

Somers realizes something is not right so he helps Sophie escape arrest and they lead the police on a cross-country chase in what seems to be a virtually impossible escape. The film is an entertaining combination of romance and suspense. I saw it at UCLA a couple of years ago and the audience loved it; reacting to each scene as it built toward it's terrific climax.

I am not sure why it is not on DVD yet but perhaps one day it will show up in a box set of British noirs or thrillers.

Lost Island of VHS...VIII

The Comfort of Strangers - Paul Schrader - 1990

One of the more intriguing films of the 1990's and certainly one of Paul Schrader's finest films is The Comfort of Strangers. Based on an Ian McEwan novel and adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter it is about a young couple played by Miranda Richarson and Rupert Everett vacationing in Venice Italy who get caught in a very odd web of dark desires with an older Venitian couple played by Christopher Walken and Hellen Mirren.

At times the film recalls Luchino Visconti's  Death in Venice crossed with something by David Lynch. Especially with it's mysterious atmosphere, underlying black humor and use of sexuality. At the heart of the film is Walken's role, which is certainly one of his finest, as a character who has a particularly old [masculine] world view that borders on charming and dangerous. He regales the couple with stories of his father, a man who seems to have been the embodiment of imperialism and fascism.

As the story unwinds it becomes evident that the couple are working through a rough patch in their relationship. But, after their first couple of encounters with Venetian couple, they begin to grow closer together. Yet as they get sucked into the deviant web it seems that the survival of their relationship is the least of their worries.

The cinematography by Dante Spinotti really deserves a special notice. The film showcases beautiful lighting along with lengthy, smooth, slow tracking shots that - coupled with the Badalamenti's score -  add to the creepy milieu as the film moves along to an ending that is both inevitable and shocking.

So how does a film this good with such names as McEwan, Pinter, Walken, Mirren, Badalamenti, Spinotti, et al. stay relatively unknown 20 years after it was made? I have no idea. It could be because MGM owns the rights and they have no desire to release it on DVD. Or it could be because it is an unconventional and too dark. But I will say some day when there is a retrospective of Paul Schrader's work this is the film that - I think - will make people reevaluate Schrader's work as they wonder why they had never heard of it. It is not available on DVD in Region 1 but you can buy it for under $10.00 from Amazon UK.

Lost Island of VHS...

Wife! Be Like A Rose - Mikio Naruse - 1935

This is a terrific film from what many call the fourth master of the classic Japanese cinema: Mikio Naruse. Naruse, no doubt, stands on his own in film history but having never seen any of his films this one felt like a fusion both in style and content of two of those other great masters Yasujirō Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. Like the films those two filmmakers made this film deals with domestic issues in 1930's Japan as well as the plight and/or roll of women in the society. In this film a young woman (Sachiko Chiba), soon to be married, goes to the country to bring back her father who left his wife and kids for a geisha twenty years before. What she does not know is that he has fathered two other children and is quite happy in his present life.

Despite the built-in drama and serious themes Wife! Be Like A Rose is on the lighter side and almost comedic at times. In part, this is due to the actress Sachiko Chiba who charms and smiles in each scene. Nothing much seems to phase her as she comes to accept the fact that reuniting her mother and father in not in the cards. [The Japanese title is Kimiko, which is the main characters' name].

Stylistically, the film also incorporates the "tatami shot" - used notably by Ozu - in which the camera is placed at a low height, along with distant framing shots and smooth camera movement which were utilized so well by Mizoguchi.

I'm am not sure why only one Naruse film is available in the US on DVD. I can only guess there are rights issues. Perhaps Criterion will eventually unspool a few of them in an Eclipse set. One can only hope.

A longer review of the film can be found here.

An interesting piece of history on the film when it opened and closed in New York in 1937 is here.

There are good notes on Naruse retrospectives at Filmforum and Harvard Film Archive.

Also a good piece over at The Evening Class.

It's time for Naruse to be re-discovered...or maybe just discovered.

Lost Island of VHS...

Deep End - Jerzy Skolimowski - 1971

This is one of the better 1970's cult films that remains unreleased on DVD. It is a darkly humorous, disturbing and ultimately tragic coming-of-age tale [sort of] about a teen-aged boy (John Moulder Brown) who gets a job in a gritty London bathhouse where he meets and falls in love with one of his female co-workers (Jane Asher). What starts as merely flirtatious becomes a bit more obsessive for the boy who seems too young and naive to understand the nature of such affairs.
What's striking about the film is the natural way the actors respond to one another and the unique setting. The direction, on the other hand, is actually quite tightly controlled showing the training director Jerzy Skolimowski received from the Lódz Film School, which in the 1960's was considered stylistically one of the most disciplined film schools in the world.*

Unique scenes - full of funny and interesting conflicts - arise again and again throughout the film making for a very entertaining story until its very strong ending.

The film gives the viewer a different view of 'swinging' London [complete with porn theatres and dark rainy streets] as well as one with a non-formulaic view or the that world.

VHS is super rare on this one but DVD-R's can be found on some web sites.

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*[And tough to get into. It took Krystof Kieslowski three tries].

Lost Island of VHS...

Il Ladro di Bambini - Gianni Amelio - 1992

Much praised in 1993 when it came out but much forgotten in the world of DVD / Blu-Ray this film is about a police officer [carabiniere] who is instructed to take a young brother and sister to an orphanage - but due to complications regarding the girls abusive past the officer decides to take the two to another orphanage in Sicily.

Even though his actions are kind he is essentially kidnapping them - unwittingly, of course. Along the trip they begin to bond with him in ways they never did with their mother. Directed by Gianni Amelio, the film takes a serious episode [sort of neo-neo-realism] and makes into something warmer, smarter but still heartbreaking.

This is long overdue on DVD.

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A side note: I recorded this on VHS years ago and through an intermediary lent the copy to Antonio Banderas - who was considering a remake. I never got back the original but I did get back a studio copy in a more official case.

Lost Island of VHS...

Antoine et Antoinette - Jacques Becker - 1947

Jacques Becker's light but highly enjoyable French film from the 1940's 'Antoine and Antoinette' is about an attractive working class couple living in Paris who get their hands on a winning lottery ticket that is sure to end all of their woes. Only the ticket gets lost in a busy train station. Antoine scrambles to find the ticket at the same time Antoinette finds herself the object of affection from a lecherous businessman who employees her. The film is sort of a remake of Rene Clair's 'Le Million'. Less artful perhaps but maybe a bit more empathetic and down-to-earth.
I suspect this could be part of the Janus Collection and may show up on Criterion some day. As it is now you can only see it on a cheap VHS copy that is tough to find.

Lost Island of VHS...

The Nasty Girl - Michael Verhoeven - 1990

One of my favorite German films from the 1990's was 'The Nasty Girl' by Michael Verehoven. A young woman writes an essay that wins her the respect and love of her small home town. So for her next assignment she decides to write an essay about the town's Nazi past and before she knows it she is an outcast facing the wrath of the town along with death threats to her family. The film's story is good enough but the style and distinct energy of the directing and editing make for a really delightful cinematic experience not to mention one that deals with a subject that still riles some Germans.
This one deserves to be on DVD. Miramax has the rights.

Lost Island of VHS...

The Dead - John Huston - 1987
One of the best 'last movies' by a master but also a great ensemble work that stands up viewing after viewing. Based on a James Joyce short story it's about a gathering of family and friends for an Epiphany dinner circa 1904.
What starts as a seemingly random series of scenes that resemble a Masterpiece Theater episode slowly evolves into a remarkable warm and rewarding film about the fragility of life. The fidelity of the direction, editing and all around acting [Angelica Huston, Donal McCann, Dan O'Herlihy and many others) make it one of the better films of the 1980's.
I watched this recently through On Demand on The Sundance channel. It was full frame with poor audio quality. This needs to be on DVD in R1.

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Update: This is finally getting a DVD release in November 2009 but the first pressing of the DVD is missing the film's first 10 minutes. It apparently was fixed on the second pressing but the first pressing is still on sale out there.

Lost Island of VHS...

I'm starting a column of films that are not available on DVD in R1 but are available on VHS if you can find them.

Stage of Siege - Costa-Gavras - 1972
State of Siege is political cinema at its most potent and [some would say] heavy handed. It's both dynamic and talky but never less than engaging and is frequently suspenseful. The setting is Uruguay and the time is the 1970's when Leftists were fighting well-funded right wing dictatorships.
A group of underground leftists have create a 'state of siege' whereby they kidnap a few key political figures. One of them is a diplomat played by Yves Montand. While kidnapped he is taken to a dark hideout where he is questioned by hooded guerrillas who know everything there is to know about him. But he holds his own with questions with a right leaning reasoning as to why things are the way they are.
Much like some of the films of Francesco Rosi the film starts with the death of the main character [Montand] and then goes back in time to show us what lead to the death. Stylistically I was struck by the editing choices and use of zoom shots, which were common the in the 70's. But here the zooms serve a narrative function rather than just add an aesthetic mood. Whether zooming in on the action as vans kidnap people or on a pair of eyes that stare at yet another diplomat walking off a plane to try and control the social and economic future of another South American country.
The film's message is that even though the guerrillas may not win they are watching, they are planning and they will not compromise their position. Costa-Gavras empathizes with them. In this regard, the film is not politically correct to the world we live in today. In fact, I don't think a film like this would be made today unless - like Marco Bellochio's Good Morning, Night [on DVD] or Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst [not in R1] - the message was about the folly and mistakes of such far left groups. Still it is hard to find fault with Costa-Gavras' criticisms of the atrocities of Latin American dicatorships.

I watched this on an old VHS tape that was full-frame and dubbed[!]. It was one of those heavy ones and it seemed it would fall apart at any moment. Fortunately, it held up fine.
Z is coming soon and Missing was released by the Criterion Collection recently so let's see if they will put this out too.