Drama

Das Boot - The Director's Cut

This is the restored, 209-minute director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's harrowing and claustrophobic U-boat thriller, which was theatrically rereleased in 1997. Originally made as a five-hour miniseries, this version devotes more time to getting to know the crew before they and their stoic captain (Jürgen Prochnow) get aboard their U-boat and find themselves stranded at the bottom of the sea. Das Boot puts you inside that submerged vessel and explores the physical and emotional tensions of the situation with a vivid, terrifying realism that few movies can match. As Petersen tightens the screws and the submerged ship blows bolts, the pressure builds to such unbearable levels that you may be tempted to escape for a nice walk on solid land in the great outdoors--only you wouldn't dream of looking away from the screen. --Jim Emerson

Stalingrad

It's tempting to call this harrowing picture a World War II version of All Quiet on the Western Front: both films take the perspective of ordinary German soldiers at ground level. Stalingrad surveys the misery of the battle of Stalingrad, the winter siege that cost the lives of almost one and a half million people, Russian defenders and German invaders alike. Not unlike Spielberg's approach to Saving Private Ryan, German director Joseph Vilsmaier rarely steps outside the action to comment on the higher purpose of the war, assuming the audience is aware of the evil of the Nazi regime. Instead, we simply follow a group of soldiers as they endure a series of gut-wrenching episodes, events which have the tang of authenticity and horror. Vilsmaier has a taste for symbolism and surreal touches, which only add to the unsettling sense of insanity this movie conjures up so well. --Robert Horton

Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Kinski stars as the mad \""Aguirre\"" who sets out with his daughter and a band of Pizarro's conquistadores down the Amazon in search of El Dorado.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: KINSKI/GUERRA/NEGRO/ROJO/RIVER
Title: AGUIRRE-WRATH OF GOD
Street Release Date: 10/24/2000
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE

Quite simply a great movie, one whose implacable portrait of ruthless greed and insane ambition becomes more pertinent every year. The astonishing Klaus Kinski plays Don Lope de Aguirre, a brutal conquistador who leads his soldiers into the Amazon jungle in an obsessive quest for gold. The story is of the expedition's relentless degeneration into brutality and despair, but the movie is much more than its plot. Director Werner Herzog strove, whenever possible, to replicate the historical circumstances of the conquistadors, and the sheer human effort of traveling through the dense mountains and valleys of Brazil in armor creates a palpable sense of struggle and derangement. This sense of reality, combined with Kinski's intensely furious performance, makes Aguirre, the Wrath of God a riveting film. Its unique emotional power is matched only by other Herzog-Kinski collaborations like Fitzcarraldo and Woyzek. --Bret Fetzer

Faraway, So Close!

Bandits

Four tough women in a German penitentiary join forces to form a rock band. When administrators take them to perform at a policeman's ball, the prisoners escape, kidnapping a convenient boy-toy hostage (Werner Schreyer), along the way. Their band, Bandits, becomes a national sensation as the women continue to evade the police. The movie is a wild ride, with quite a respectable score of rock songs--some catchy, some haunting--composed and performed by Bandits members themselves. All are sung in English (which seems to be the universal language of rock & roll). But although the picture is a lot of fun, it's no Spice World; there's a harder edge, a deeper agenda here. These women were all prisoners for a reason. Each fugitive's story is gradually revealed as the plot progresses. Luna (sultry Jasmin Tabatabai), the lead singer and guitarist, is a loose canon with a real attitude problem. And she likes to rob banks. Emma (Katja Riemann), the brains of the group, had a successful jazz career in America before her abusive boyfriend drove her over the edge. Marie (Jutta Hoffmann), the band's middle-aged keyboard player, is suicidal: something to do with her involvement in her husband's death. Angel (lovely Nicolette Krebitz), is the team's weak link; she can't be trusted. As the Bandits pull off each increasingly improbable narrow escape, the film takes on the radiance of myth, ascending ultimately to an apocalyptic finale. --Laura Mirsky

Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos / Levine, Norman, Battle, Troyanos, Metropolitan Opera

The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

Fritz Lang's all-but-unseen final film, a low-budget German thriller that resurrects (sort of) his legendary underworld genius Dr. Mabuse, is a flashback to Lang's early days of criminal conspiracies and wild, fast-paced adventures. A relentless police inspector (Gert Goldfinger Fröbe) targets the Nazi-built Hotel Luxor as the central connection in over a dozen murders and camps out in the lobby. Upstairs an American industrialist (played by the very German Peter Van Eyck) rescues a suicidal woman (Dawn Addams) from the ledge and falls in love, while in the basement a mysterious, club-footed character watches everything on an elaborate closed-circuit surveillance system. Rounding out the cast of shady characters are a jovial but nosy insurance salesman, a creepy blind psychic, and a particularly menacing Howard Vernon as an icy assassin with a silent rifle. The complicated, at times confusing plot is secondary to the web of blackmail, murder, secret identities, and incessant surveillance at the center of the conspiracy: everyone is spying on somebody and almost no one is as he or she seems. The generic sets and frankly cheep special effects are made up for with ingenious cinematic signatures (the opening assassination is a model of cool simplicity and striking suggestion), dark humor, a rich cast of vivid characters, and a driving pace that sends the film hurtling headlong toward a fatal climax. --Sean Axmaker

The last film ever made by the great Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M, The Big Heat), this fascinating thriller combines elements of film noir, horror, and science fiction. Gert Frobe (Goldfinger) stars as police commissioner Kras, trying to uncover the sinister secret of the mysterious Hotel Luxor, ground zero for a massive crime wave. The crimes show all the hallmarks of evil genius Dr. Mabuse--but he died 30 years ago! Digitally restored from original studio negatives.

Woyzeck

The films of Werner Herzog are often marked by physically punishing circumstances that test the endurance of the characters. In Woyzeck, based on the classic German expressionist play by Georg Buchner, all the punishment is within. Klaus Kinski stars as Woyzeck, a disturbed soldier subjected to dubious scientific experiments and maltreatment from his superiors. His only solace is his lover, Marie (Eva Mattes)--so when he begins to suspect her of infidelity, his jealousy swiftly turns murderous. The movie is shot with unusual simplicity, often in long sustained shots that demand focused, disciplined performances. Both of the main actors rose to the task; Mattes was awarded Best Supporting Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and Kinski creates a harrowing portrait of fragile desperation. It's a reminder that, though best known for his volcanic frenzies, Kinski could vividly portray all sides of the human condition. --Bret Fetzer

M - Criterion Collection

Peter Lorre made film history with his startling performance as a psychotic murderer of children. Too elusive for the Berlin police, the killer is sought and marked by underworld criminals who are feeling the official fallout for his crimes. This riveting, 1931 German drama by Fritz Lang--an early talkie--unfolds against a breathtakingly expressionistic backdrop of shadows and clutter, an atmosphere of predestination that seems to be closing in on Lorre's terrified villain. M is an important piece of cinema's past along with a number of Lang's early German works, including Metropolis and Spies. (Lang eventually brought his influence directly to the American cinema in such films as Fury, They Clash by Night, and The Big Heat.) M shouldn't be missed. This original 111-minute version is a little different from what most people have seen in theaters. --Tom Keogh

Behind every great suspense thriller lurks the shadow of M. In this, Fritz Lang's first sound film, Peter Lorre delivers a haunting performance as the cinema's first serial killer, a whistling pedophile hunted by the police and brought to trial by the forces of the Berlin underworld. Greig's "Peer Gynt Suite" will never sound the same. Criterion is proud to present Lang's seminal film in a new transfer.

Cobra Verde

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: KINSKI/AMPAW/LEWGOY/BASILE/BER
Title: COBRA VERDE
Street Release Date: 10/24/2000
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE

In their last film together, director Werner Herzog drew from actor Klaus Kinski a performance that grounds Kinski's volcanic passions with a new gravity--perhaps age was bringing Kinski down to earth. He plays Cobra Verde, a notorious Brazilian bandit, whom a plantation owner hires to keep his slaves in line. After Cobra Verde impregnates all his daughters, the owner and the authorities conspire to send the bandit to Africa to reopen the slave trade. They expect him to be killed, but through a mixture of his own cunning and the volatile politics of West Africa, Cobra Verde ends up leading an army of women to overthrow the king. Cobra Verde is disjointed, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth watching. Kinski is magnetic in scene after remarkable scene, and though the whole isn't satisfying, the parts certainly are. --Bret Fetzer