Guiomar, Julien

King Of Hearts

A Scottish soldier is sent to disarm a bomb in a French village that has been evacuated except for the inmates of an insane asylum. He doesn't realize that all his new friends are mentally unstable until he is crowned King.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 7-SEP-2004
Media Type: DVD

This film was a touchstone of the late 1960s, when it was seen as an antiwar allegory for a world in which madness seemed to reign. Of course, that would probably be true whenever this movie was shown, wouldn't it? Directed by Philippe de Broca and set during World War I, King of Hearts stars Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier separated from his unit in France. He wanders into a small French village that has been abandoned by its residents in the face of oncoming combat. Instead, the town is populated by the residents of a nearby insane asylum, whose keepers have fled--a fact that escapes the innocent soldier, who assumes these are the regular folks. A film that celebrates the innocence and wisdom of the insane, even as it questions who the real madmen are. --Marshall Fine

Z

Costa-Gavras's Z, winner of the 1970 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, is a classic political thriller, combining intrigue with raw emotional power. The story turns on the investigation of the assassination of a left-wing Greek politician (Yves Montand), and his government's attempts to cover up the murky circumstances. Montand receives death threats as he prepares to give a speech condemning the government, and is then run down in front of numerous witnesses. Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist) plays the judge assigned to the investigation, who gradually discovers how far the state will go to rid itself of political opposition. As he is warned off the case by his superiors, the judge becomes even more determined to discover the truth, no matter where it might lead. Costa-Gavras (Missing, Mad City) is in familiar territory here, but no one handles this type of material better. Z is a classic of political intrigue and social consciousness. --Robert Lane

From the acclaimed political film maker Costa-Gavras (Amen, Missing, Music Box) comes Z, winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar® in 1969. Z's edge of your seat action closely parallels the real life assassination of Gregorios Lambrakis, a Greek doctor and humanist whose murder in 1963 led to an abortive public scandal. Hailed as one of the greatest political thrillers ever made with superb performances by a top international cast including Yves Montand (Jean de Florette), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Red) and Irene Papas (Zorba the Greek), Z is one movie "you can't afford to miss."

The Milky Way (Criterion Collection)

The first of what Luis Bunuel later proclaimed a trilogy (along with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty) about "the search for truth" The Milky Way (La voie lactee) daringly deconstructs contemporary and traditional views on Catholicism with ribald rambunctious surreality. Two French beggars present-day pilgrims en route to Spain's holy city of Santiago de Compostela serve as Bunuel's narrators for an anticlerical history of heresy told with absurdity and filled with images that rank among Bunuel's most memorable (stigmatic children crucified nuns) and hilarious (Jesus considering a good shave). A diabolically entertaining look at the mysteries of fanaticism The Milky Way remains a hotly debated work from cinema's greatest skeptic. System Requirements:Running Time: 105 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 715515025126 Manufacturer No: CC1709DDVD

Leolo

Welcome to the world of Leolo Lozone, a 12-year-old dreamer with a hilarious life-preserving ability to recreate the world according to his imagination. Whether dealing with his scatterbrained brother or plotting the murder of his grandfather, Leolo is an incorrigible misfit touched with a lovable streak of madness. From a wild romance with his sexy next door neighbor to incredible visits to the bottom of the sea, Leolo takes refuge in a fantasy world of poems and reams where he can triumph over even the strangest of tragedies. Bizarre, belligerent and totally outrageous!

Bizet - Carmen / Maazel, Migenes, Domingo

This is the most popular opera production so far on DVD, surpassing even Franco Zeffirelli's lavish, symbol-laden La Traviata. It is an exciting Carmen, with a young-looking Placido Domingo in top form for a role he has sung hundreds of times. For Julia Migenes, it was her first performance in a role she would have trouble performing in an opera house. Her voice does not fit easily into Carmen's range, and she spent months training it, very successfully, before singing the role in a recording studio where the soundtrack was taped before the film was shot. Casting her in the role was a gamble, but it worked; she is a convincing actress--even better than Maria Ewing in the competing DVD edition from Covent Garden, though Ewing acts very well and has a more appropriate voice.

This movie version was filmed on location, conveying a kind of atmosphere, a sense of space, movement, and presence hard to achieve in a staged performance shot for television. It takes the action out of doors for many scenes. The opening titles are superimposed on the bloody conclusion of a bullfight. The changing of the guard in the opening scene, with the boys' chorus playing soldier, the crowd scenes, the dance number that opens Act II, the panoramic scenery of the smugglers' mountain hideout, all benefit from the freedom granted by movie cameras. But the music is, on the whole, more effectively performed in the Covent Garden production, which also handles close-up shots better, perhaps because it was directed with a small screen in mind. The opera house atmosphere will make hard-core opera fans feel more at home. The movie version uses the opera's original opera comique form with some spoken dialogue rather than recitatives. --Joe McLellan

All the passion and spectacle of Bizet's Carmen comes to life in this dazzling screen opera starring Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes-Johnson. In 19th century Seville, the lusty, tempestuous Carmen (Migenes-Johnson) seduces a naive Army corporal, Don Jose (Domingo), newly assigned to the village fortress. Jose abandons his career, his fiancée and even his dying mother for the love of this sultry gypsy. But soon she spurns him in favor of a toreador, Escamillo (Ruggero Raimondi). Crazed with jealousy, Jose begs Carmen to return to him, but her taunting declaration of independence results in tragedy. Shot entirely on location in Andalusian Spain, Bizet's Carmen has been hailed as the definitive version of this classic opera. 155 minutes.

L' Aile ou la cuisse [Region 2]

Barocco

A strange and beautiful variation on Vertigo, French director André Téchiné's Barocco (in English, "Baroque") stars Isabelle Adjani as the girlfriend of a boxer (Gérard Depardieu) who's being paid to smear a political candidate. When the boxer is killed, his killer (Depardieu again) follows Adjani, seeking the boxer's money--but he also grows obsessed with Adjani, and she in turn decides to remake him into her dead lover. Barocco, with its gorgeously composed cinematography and circuitous plot, evokes the style of directors like Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock; it's as much an homage to other thrillers as it is a thriller itself. But very few movies wear their influences so successfully--despite the abstruseness of its plot, Barocco is full of hypnotic and dazzling images, and Depardieu and Adjani give intense, haunted performances. A movie for movie-lovers. --Bret Fetzer

L' Animal [Region 2]

Leolo

Papy fait de la résistance [Region 2]