Vidi Vidi Vidi - video movie releases - Review

Film Comment, Jan, 1999 by Govin Smith

Gavin Smith recommends the latest new releases on video

PICK

Made in 1978, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Despair (Connoisseur Meridian, $29.95) is one of his most underrated. RWF adapts effortlessly to the demands of this international art cinema prestige production, an English-language, Tom Stoppard adaptation of a Nabokov novel, starring Dirk Bogarde. Following in the footsteps of Visconti and Bertolucci, but foregrounding his own preoccupations with entrapment and paranoia, Fassbinder depicts the psychic disintegration of a Russian-Jewish chocolate manufacturer living a life of bourgeois decadence in Weimar Germany at the onset of Nazism. Hatching an irrational plan to disappear, Bogarde fakes his own murder by switching identities with, then killing a down-and-out who he is convinced is his double -- although in fact the man bears him no resemblance whatsoever. RWF and Stoppard were faulted for literalizing Nabokov's ambiguities by introducing a historicist dimension to the action. On the contrary, by emphasizing the mounting indications of the protagonist's increasingly hostile social surroundings, as well as the banal comedy of adultery between his wife anti her cousin taking place under his nose, the film accentuates his delusional obliviousness to the world around him. There is much to savor in this rich, enigmatic film: the intricate, creamy artifices of Fassbinder's mise-en-scene, in which the confected art deco interiors function as an endless series of imprisoning and confining spaces; the mannered, slightly deranged tone of the performances; and the remarkably jittery music score by Fassbinder's perennial composer, Peer Raben. Also reissued: RWF's 1978 film I Only Want You to Love Me, $29.95.

RUNNER-UP PICKS

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982, WS) -- Universal, $34.98

Six films from Iran: Once Upon a Time, Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1992), Nargess (Rakhshan Bani-etemad, 1992), The Last Act (Varuzh Karim-Masihi, 1991), Zinat (Ebrahim Mokhtari, 1994), Travellers (Bahram Beyzai, 1992) & The Legend of a Sigh (Tahmineh Milani) -- Facets, $29.95 each

STRAIGHT TO VIDEO

This Is the Sea (Mary McGuckian, Ireland, 1997) In this vivid, involving, if a little overwrought Northern Ireland Romeo and Juliet, a Catholic city kid (Ross McDade) falls for a Prod country girl (Samantha Morton, last seen in Under the Skin); meanwhile his brother (John Lynch), who has renounced his IRA past, is coerced by a former commander (Gabriel Byrne) into participating in one last action. -- Paramount, rental only.

OTHER NOTABLE RELEASES

Dario Argento: Phenomena aka Creepers (1985, WS, 27 rains, of new footage) and Tenebrae (1982, WS), plus the Argento-wr/pr Demons (1985, WS) & Demons 2 (1986, WS), directed by Lamberto Bava -- Anchor Bay, $14.98 each

Alan Berliner: The Family Album (1986); Intimate Stranger (1991); Nobody's Business (1996) -- Milestone, $29.95 each/$79.95 set

Charlie Chaplin Mutual Studios shorts (1916-17, 12 shorts remastered, 3 tapes) -- Kino, $19.95 each

Jules Dassin: Brute Force (1947) & The Naked City (1948) -- Kino, $24.95 each

Akira Kurosawa: No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) & One Wonderful Sunday (1947) -- Home Vision, $19.95 each

Mary Pickford: My Best Girl, Stella Maris, Tess of the Storm Country -- Milestone, $29.95 each/$139.95 set

The Three Stooges Curly Classics: Vol 1: Whoops I'm an Indian, Rockin' Through the Rockies, Cactus Makes Perfect, Gents Without Cents & Termites of 1938. Vol 2: Men in Black, MicroPhonies, Punch Drunks, Three Little Pigskins & Women, Haters -- Columbia TriStar, $34.95 two-pack

Anna (Nikita Mikhalkov, Russia, 1996, WS) -- New Yorker, $89.95

The Blue Gardenia (Fritz Lang, 1953) -- Kino, $24.95

La Desenchantee (Benoit Jacquot, 1990) -- First Run, $79.95

Dread Naught (Yuen Woo-Ping, 1981, Hong Kong) -- Tai-Seng Video, $59.95

Fantastic Planet (Rene Laloux, France, 1973, WS) -- Anchor Bay, $14.98

Funny Games (Michael Haneke, Austria, 1997) -- Fox Lorber, $89.98

Hell in the Pacific (John Boorman, 1969, WS) -- Anchor Bay, $14.98

Husbands (John Cassavetes, 1970) -- Columbia, $19.95

Lola Montes (Max Ophuls, France/Germany, 1955, WS) -- Fox Lorber, $29.98

The Most Dangerous Game (Schoedsack & Pichel, 1932) -- Home Vision, $14.95

Nosferatu -- The Vampyre (Werner Herzog, Germany, 1978, WS) -- Anchor Bay, $14.98

Point of Order (Emile de Antonio & Dan Talbot, 1963) -- New Yorker, $89.95

Quatermass II (Val Guest, Britain, 1957) -Anchor Bay, $14.98

The Silver Screen/Color Me Lavender (Mark Rappaport, 1998) -- Water Bearer, $39.95

Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1996, WS) -- New Yorker, $94.98

Variety (Bette Gordon, 1983) -- Kino, $24.95

The War at Home (Barry Alexander Brown & Glenn Silber, 1979) -- First Run, $29.95

The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969, director's cut, WS documentary "The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage") -- Warner Bros., $19.98

BEST REPRICES

Salo (Pier-Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1975) -- Water Bearer, $29.95

Mike Leigh x 2: Bleak Moments (1971), Water Bearer, $29.95 & Meantime, (1983), Fox Lorber, $19.98

ORDERING INFORMATION