DVD Title: BABETTE's FEAST
Director: Gabriel Axel
The Danish/French Babette's Feast is based on a story by Isak Dinesen, also the source of the very different Out of Africa (1985). Stephane Audran plays Babette, a 19th century Parisian political refugee who seeks shelter in a rough Danish coastal town. Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel), the elderly daughters of the town's long-dead minister, take Babette in. As revealed in flashback, Philippa and Martina were once beautiful young women, who'd forsaken their chances at romance and fame, taking hollow refuge in religion.
DVD Title: CINEMA PARADISO
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cinema Paradiso offers a nostalgic look at films and the effect they have on a young boy who grows up in and around the title village movie theater in this Italian comedy drama that is based on the life and times of screenwriter/director Giuseppe Tornatore. The story begins in the present as a Sicilian mother pines for her estranged son, Salvatore, who left many years ago and has since become a prominent Roman film director who has taken the advice of his mentor too literally. He finally returns to his home village to attend the funeral of the town's former film projectionist, Alfredo, and, in so doing, embarks upon a journey into his boyhood just after WWII when he became the man's official son.
Director: Gabriel Axel
The Danish/French Babette's Feast is based on a story by Isak Dinesen, also the source of the very different Out of Africa (1985). Stephane Audran plays Babette, a 19th century Parisian political refugee who seeks shelter in a rough Danish coastal town. Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel), the elderly daughters of the town's long-dead minister, take Babette in. As revealed in flashback, Philippa and Martina were once beautiful young women, who'd forsaken their chances at romance and fame, taking hollow refuge in religion.
DVD Title: CINEMA PARADISO
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cinema Paradiso offers a nostalgic look at films and the effect they have on a young boy who grows up in and around the title village movie theater in this Italian comedy drama that is based on the life and times of screenwriter/director Giuseppe Tornatore. The story begins in the present as a Sicilian mother pines for her estranged son, Salvatore, who left many years ago and has since become a prominent Roman film director who has taken the advice of his mentor too literally. He finally returns to his home village to attend the funeral of the town's former film projectionist, Alfredo, and, in so doing, embarks upon a journey into his boyhood just after WWII when he became the man's official son.
DVD Title: CITY OF GOD
Director: Fernando Meirelles
City of God is a sweeping tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bené (Phelipe Haagensen), become crime lords over the course of a decade. When Bené is killed before he can retire, Lil' Zé attempts to take out his arch enemy, Sandro Cenoura (Matheus Nachtergaele). But Sandro and a young gangster named Mane form an alliance and begin a gang war with Lil' Zé. Amateur photographer Buscape (Alexandre Rodrigues) takes pictures of the brutal crime war, making their story famous.
DVD Title: THE DECALOGUE [special edition - 3 discs]
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
An ambitious, tour-de-force epic originally made for Polish television, Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue (1988) explores nothing less than the Ten Commandments. Written by agnostic Kieslowski and Christian Krzysztof Piesiewicz, each of the ten short films examines a commandment (without specifying which one) in terms of the moral quandaries faced by ordinary people in their daily lives. Setting all the stories in the same bleak Warsaw housing project, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz emphasize the universal yet mundane nature of the different conundrums, in an everyday world replete with coincidences, tragedies, and cosmic jokes. Although each film could stand alone, as in Kieslowski's subsequent Three Colors trilogy, they occasionally intersect in subtle ways that enhance the complex cohesion of the whole, along with the unifying use of washed-out colors and close-ups.
Director: Fernando Meirelles
City of God is a sweeping tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bené (Phelipe Haagensen), become crime lords over the course of a decade. When Bené is killed before he can retire, Lil' Zé attempts to take out his arch enemy, Sandro Cenoura (Matheus Nachtergaele). But Sandro and a young gangster named Mane form an alliance and begin a gang war with Lil' Zé. Amateur photographer Buscape (Alexandre Rodrigues) takes pictures of the brutal crime war, making their story famous.
DVD Title: THE DECALOGUE [special edition - 3 discs]
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
An ambitious, tour-de-force epic originally made for Polish television, Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue (1988) explores nothing less than the Ten Commandments. Written by agnostic Kieslowski and Christian Krzysztof Piesiewicz, each of the ten short films examines a commandment (without specifying which one) in terms of the moral quandaries faced by ordinary people in their daily lives. Setting all the stories in the same bleak Warsaw housing project, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz emphasize the universal yet mundane nature of the different conundrums, in an everyday world replete with coincidences, tragedies, and cosmic jokes. Although each film could stand alone, as in Kieslowski's subsequent Three Colors trilogy, they occasionally intersect in subtle ways that enhance the complex cohesion of the whole, along with the unifying use of washed-out colors and close-ups.
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