The Lost Child

Starring:Mercedes Ruehl, Jamey Sheridan, Cristine Rose, Irene Bedard, Dinah Manoff, Tantoo Cardinal, Julia McIlvaine, Ned Romero, Michael Greyeyes, Rudy 'Red Eagle' Soto, Kathrine Crookedhorn, Douglas Miles, Jon Proudstar, Kimberly Norris, Nicole Weltzien, Roy Johnston, Alan Tafoya, Shannon Rivers, David 'Bronco' Martinez, Naomi Lovelace
Director: Karen Arthur
Studio: Lions Gate
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Product Description
As a young child, Rebecca Hoffman (played by Academy Award® winner Mercedes Ruehl) was raised by a loving and caring family, knowing she was adopted.

Following her parents' deaths, Rebecca begins a search for her natural family. She is contacted by a Navajo woman looking for her own siblings, who were stolen from her mother at birth. As the two women talk, they suddenly realize they are sisters and that Becks has found her birth family! Excitedly, Rebecca decides to take her children to meet her family on the reservation.
They are welcomed with opened arms, and begins learning the language and traditions of their rich ancestry. Her husband (Jamey Sheridan), however, is branded an outsider and has difficulty becoming accepted as a part of the Navajo community. As the differences between the two cultures come to the surface, the family discovers a commitment to each other that runs deeper than the circumstances and a heritage that captivates their hearts.

System Requirements:

Running Time 98 Min

Format: DVD MOVIE

Average customer rating:

Beautiful story
A good movie...but a bit disappointing
Fabulous entertainment!
Believe the hype
Hakao at his best.

Spirited Away
Starring: Hayao Miyazaki
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005JLEU
Release Date: 2003-04-15

Amazon.com

The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history (more than $234 million), Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice, Chihiro (voice by Daveigh Chase--Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch) plunges into an alternate reality. On the way to their new home, the petulant adolescent and her parents find what they think is a deserted amusement park. Her parents stuff themselves until they turn into pigs, and Chihiro discovers they're trapped in a resort for traditional Japanese gods and spirits. An oddly familiar boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) instructs Chihiro to request a job from Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), the greedy witch who rules the spa. As she works, Chihiro's untapped qualities keep her from being corrupted by the greed that pervades Yubaba's mini-empire. In a series of fantastic adventures, she purges a river god suffering from human pollution, rescues the mysterious No-Face, and befriends Yubaba's kindly twin, Zeniba (Pleshette again). The resolve, bravery, and love Chihiro discovers within herself enable her to aid Haku and save her parents. The result is a moving and magical journey, told with consummate skill by one of the masters of contemporary animation. MPAA Rated: PG ("Some scary moments") --Charles Solomon

Description

From one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animated cinema comes the most acclaimed film of 2002. Hayao Miyazaki's latest triumph, filled with astonishing animation and epic adventure, is a dazzling masterpiece for the ages. It's a "wonderfully welcoming work of art that's as funny and entertaining as it is brilliant, beautiful, and deep" (Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal). SPIRITED AWAY is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world. An unforgettable story brimming with creativity, SPIRITED AWAY will take you on a journey beyond your imagination. "To enter the world of Hayao Miyazaki is to experience a kind of lighthearted enchantment that is unique to the world of animation" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). It's a fantastic tale the whole family will want to experience over and over again.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful story.......2007-06-03

We have watched this cartoon maybe a thousand times. What an amazing tale. Just like all Miyazaki's works, it is smart, mysterious and kind. We are pulled into strange world of spirits, where the main heroine fogoes transformation, and grows spiritually. Prepare yourself for dragons, heights, monsters, and witches galore. Imagination goes wild in this classic, highly recommended.

A good movie...but a bit disappointing.......2007-05-29

Sprited Away is an impressive movie. It has a coherent plot, a well-developed main character, and supurb animation.

It definitely succeeds as a story about a modern girl who winds up as a bathhouse attendant for kami, and has to grow up fast in order to deal with the bizarre situations you'd expect in such a place.

However, I think I liked the concept better than the execution. The idea of an abandoned theme park taken over by kami is really inspired, as is the kami commuter train, where the tracks and stations are all partly covered by water.

For me, the eerie situation and atmosphere kept getting buried by the action and dialogue, which often seemed random and pointless. Slimy blubbery things with tentacles show up, puke lots of slime, eat other slimy creatures, puke them up, and everyone screams a lot.

For some reason (too much H.P. Lovecraft?) nearly all kami in Miyazaki movies are kind of shapeless and blubbery, and spew slime and tentacles everywhere at the slightest provocation.

More importantly, none of the kami are developed enough as characters for the viewer to get much insight into their motivations. Yubaba/Zenziba can switch from being manipulative or murderous soul-stealers to kindly grandmothers in the blink of an eye, and like the rest of the cast, always seem to push Chihiro in the direction she needs to go to finish the story. I had the frustrating impression that the whole story simply existed for the sake of Chihiro's psychological growth. That may well be the director's intention, but certainly makes for a less interesting movie.

Fabulous entertainment!.......2007-05-25

I love this film. It's so emotionally resonant and yet so fun. My husband and I really enjoyed watching it with our little boy. It's a little scary in parts, so don't let the little ones watch it by themselves, but it's really very good.

Believe the hype.......2007-05-24

One of the very few animes that can be watched by children. It has a great story, interesting characters, and good animation. If you liked Porco Russo, Nausicaa, or Return of the Cat, then this is highly recommended. This is also a good change of pace from those who love the action and gore genres. I love to watch the type of animes that consist of ultra violence with characters being beat to death. However Spirited Away doesn't contain any of that stuff and it will always have a home in my collection.

Hakao at his best........2007-05-18

When I first saw Spirited Away I became a convert to Hayao Miyazaki's work. I went an got all of them. I wait like Harry Potter fans for the next film. This may be his best. You may prefer one of his others. Your problem. It is some of the best animation I have seen, not in a technical sense of making everything look real. But, in the sense that the animation tells the story. The characters are real characters. It may stretch out; there was a point when I wonder if parts could've tighter. By the end it picks up again. A little knowledge of Japanese mythology adds another layer to an appreciation of the story.

Average customer rating:

Visually arresting from start to finish...great performances...
Touching and sad movie
Love it!!
Very good film.
I've watched it three times now.

Empire of the Sun
Starring: Hiro Arai , Christian Bale , J.G. Ballard , Ray Charleson , and Peter Copley
Director: Steven Spielberg
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Empire of the Sun

ASIN: B00003CX9U
Release Date: 2001-11-06

Amazon.com essential video

Roundly dismissed as one of Steven Spielberg's least successful efforts, this very underrated film poignantly follows the World War II adventures of young Jim (a brilliant Christian Bale), caught in the throes of the fall of China. What if you once had everything and lost it all in an afternoon? What if you were only 12? Bale's transformation, from pampered British ruling-class child to an imprisoned, desperate, nearly feral boy, is nothing short of stunning. Also stunning are exceptional sets, cinematography, and music (the last courtesy of John Williams) that enhance author J.G. Ballard's and screenwriter Tom Stoppard's depiction of another, less familiar casualty of war.

In a time when competitors were releasing "comedic," derivative coming-of-age films, Empire of the Sun stands out as an epic in the classic David Lean sense--despite confusion or perceived competition with the equally excellent The Last Emperor (also released in 1987, and also a coming-of-age in a similar setting). It is also a remarkable testament to, yes, the human spirit. And despite its disappointing box-office returns, Empire of the Sun helped to further establish Spielberg as more than a commercial director and set the standard, tone, and look for future efforts Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. --N.F. Mendoza

Description

Steven Spielberg's epic about a youngster's harrowing and remarkable experiences in World War II-era China after the Japanese invasion. Best Picture,Director/ National Board of Review.

Customer Reviews:

Visually arresting from start to finish...great performances..........2007-06-08

EMPIRE OF THE SUN is a gem of movie-making. Visually arresting from start to finish, given a sumptuous musical score by John Williams and some of the finest cinematography ever seen, it is hard to understand why the film is not as highly acclaimed as it ought to be...nor is it fitting that it was nominated for six Academy Awards but received none.

It's a sweeping epic but depends on capturing your interest by giving the main burden to the young Christian Bale who certainly has one of the great child roles of a lifetime as Jim--and becomes the character so completely that his final reunion with his parents brings tears to the eyes. By that time, the viewer has been through so much with him, watching as he grows from spoiled rich kid to a wily boy who must fend for himself among the wolf-pack of prisoners interred by the Japanese.

Basically, it's the real life story of one boy's survival during the outbreak of World War II when he is separated from his British parents during the evacuation of Shanghai. It is a spectacularly staged evacuation scene that is topped throughout by other scenes of visual splendor and poignant moments that stay in the memory long after the film is over. The boy's fascination with the beauty of planes and the horrors of war are well documented--as is his strange fascination with the Japanese and his doomed friendship with a Japanese boy.

The film falls squarely on the shoulders of Christian Bale, so much so that the supporting players are never fully fleshed characters. However, all of them within a limited range--including John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Nigel Havers--do magnificent jobs. Steven Spielberg's direction cannot be faulted. He has given us a closeup glimpse of war and its effect on people that can only be rivaled by his later masterwork, SCHINDLER'S LIST.

Technically, the film is a brilliant achievement in all of its World War II details. And Christian Bale certainly deserved an Oscar for what has to be one of the strongest performances ever given by a child actor, with never a false step, every nuance just perfect.

Touching and sad movie.......2007-05-24

This movie reflects on war and its effects on a little boy. It is very entertaining yet very sad. I definitely recommend this movie to everyone who would like to know some of war's ugly sides. A great buy!

Love it!!.......2007-05-14

I have been looking for this film all over, and when I found out that Amazon had it I was really excited. I love this classic film and now I have the chance to watch it when ever I want. Thank you sooooo much.

Very good film........2007-05-13

People of all ages can enjoy this film about coming of age in a time of war. It has beautiful imagery and uses its soundtrack very effectively. Beautiful work from a younger Spielberg.

I've watched it three times now........2007-05-13

The acting and the directing transform this story into an unforgetable movie. Stephan Spielberg's scenes are great!

Average customer rating:

Pretty Baby
Starring: Brooke Shields , Keith Carradine , Susan Sarandon , Frances Faye , and Antonio Fargas
Director: Louis Malle
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000AUHQ6
Release Date: 2003-11-18

Amazon.com essential video

A semi-scandal upon its release in 1978, this Louis Malle film is set in a turn-of-the-century, New Orleans bordello and focuses on a girl named Violet (then-child actress Brooke Shields) whose imminent twelfth birthday signals her "readiness" to become a career prostitute. Typical of Malle, the outwardly forbidden nature of the story and relationships within are morally obscured by the immediate experiences and unqualified urges of the characters. The little heroine brings a distinctly youthful and innocent view to the milieu, and the introduction of a photographer (Keith Carradine)--who eventually marries Violet--in the brothel carries the suggestion that there is art and beauty to be explored there. Susan Sarandon is beguiling as Violet's mother, who seems to unfold in the cameraman's presence. The film moves a little stiffly, a little slowly, possibly from a heavy emphasis on period art direction and Sven Nykvist's moody if gorgeous photography. --Tom Keogh

Leon - The Professional (Uncut International Version)

Average customer rating:

Leon - The Professional (Uncut International Version)
Starring: Jean Reno , Gary Oldman , Natalie Portman , Danny Aiello , and Peter Appel
Director: Luc Besson
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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V for Vendetta (Two-Disc Special Edition)

ASIN: B00004YYDI
Release Date: 2000-10-03

Amazon.com

Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) made his American directorial debut with this stylized thriller about a French hit man (Jean Reno) who takes in an American girl (Natalie Portman) being pursued by a corrupt killer cop (Gary Oldman). Oldman is a little more unhinged than he should be, but there is something genuinely irresistible about the story line and the relationship between Reno and Portman. Rather than cave in to the cookie-cutter look and feel of American action pictures, Besson brings a bit of his glossy style from French hits La Femme Nikita and Subway to the production, and the results are refreshing even if the bullets and explosions are awfully familiar. --Tom Keogh

Average customer rating:

In Search of the Castaways
Starring: Maurice Chevalier , Hayley Mills , George Sanders , Wilfrid Hyde-White , and Michael Anderson Jr.
Director: Robert Stevenson
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B00005JLJC
Release Date: 2005-05-03

Amazon.com

In Search of the Castaways was Hayley Mills's third feature for Disney, an agreeable adventure--loosely based on a Jules Verne story--with enough derring-do to make kids happy and with the right touch of self-conscious silliness to keep adults smiling. Mills plays Mary Grant, a missing freighter captain's daughter convinced her father is still alive somewhere in Earth's southern hemisphere. With the help of her brother (Keith Hamshire) and a veteran seaman (an extremely unlikely if charming Maurice Chevalier), Mary convinces a shipping magnate, Lord Glenarvan (Wilfrid Hyde-White), to set sail and find the missing Captain Grant. The team survives freezing weather, avalanches, a menacing condor, an active volcano, Maori captors, and a plot by a slick George Sanders to steal a ship. Meanwhile, Mary and Glenarvan's rakish son, John (Michael Anderson Jr.), engage in flirtatious feuding. The many memorable action sequences are wildly improbable (all the more so watching the nonchalant Chevalier have a go at Indiana Jones-like heroics) and liberally employ old-fashioned process shots, mattes, paintings, and other pre-digital special effects. The incomparable Hyde-White looks as if he's having fun alternately harrumphing and encouraging good old British resolve, while Sanders effortlessly portrays, for the umpteenth time, his brand of enchanting villainy. Directed by Robert Stevenson (Mary Poppins). In Search of the Castaways is presented here in its original, full-screen format. --Tom Keogh

Description

Embark on an amazing adventure awash with intrigue over land and sea, now on Disney DVD for the first time! Hayley Mills stars as fearless Mary Grant, whose only clue to her missing father -- a sea captain -- is a mysterious message in a bottle. One clue leads to a thousand thrills when Mary, her brother, and their fellow searchers must brave earthquakes, fire, flood, and even a giant condor on their perilous rescue mission. Maurice Chevalier, George Sanders, and Wilfrid Hyde-White also star in this spectacular fantasy-adventure based on celebrated novelist Jules Verne's popular book. Brimming with special effects, this is your passport to surefire family fun!

Average customer rating:

The Nightcomers
Starring: Marlon Brando , Stephanie Beacham , Thora Hird , Harry Andrews , and Verna Harvey
Director: Michael Winner
Manufacturer: Lionsgate
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000OU03BW
Release Date: 2007-06-19

Description

Captivating and disturbing, this intense psychodrama with its haunting, twisted notion of sexuality puts a new spin on the characters from Henry James' celebrated ghost story, "The Turn of the Screw." MARLON BRANDO stars as QUINT, a gardener who powerfully impacts the lives of young orphans Miles and Flora, who are left in the care of their governess (STEPHANIE BEACHAM) and housekeeper (THORA HIRD). Obsessed with the charismatic Quint, the children are mesmerized by his warped views of love and life and soon pattern their own lives after his crude, secret courtship with their governess. When the housekeeper finds out about the lovers' relationship, she decides to fire them, leaving the bereft children to take matters into their own chilling hands.

Average customer rating:

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
Starring: Asia Argento , Lydia Lunch , Ornella Muti , Winona Ryder , and Jeremy Sisto
Director: Asia Argento
Manufacturer: Palm Pictures (Home Entertainment)
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000F1IO3E
Release Date: 2006-06-06

Amazon.com

Asia Argento's adaptation of JT Leroy's short story collection, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, still has the heartbreaking urgency of a tale about child abuse, regardless of Leroy's proven fraudulent identity. Weaving plots together from Leroy's two books, Sarah, and The Heart Is Deceitful, Argento relays the history of orphaned Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett/Cole Sprouse), whose mother Sarah (Asia Argento) abandons him as a baby to work as a truck-stop lot lizard for her methamphetamine habit. Sarah tears Jeremiah away from a stable foster home to pathetically attempt mothering her seven-year old son. Jeremiah instantly grows up in strip clubs, drug dealers' homes, big rigs, and in the hot rod that he and his mother call home. His sadomasochistic sexual psychology also develops prematurely, informed by men who rape and beat him, and a mother whose work as a hooker requires Jeremiah's dressing up as a girl to pass as her younger sister. Enter a born again, psychotically zealous Grandfather (Peter Fonda) who takes temporary custody of Jeremiah, and the viewer begins to understand Sarah's severe rebelliousness, sensing that the punk, 23-year old prostitute may be a better parent for Jeremiah, simply because she loves him. Shot by Eric Alan Edwards (Kids, My Own Private Idaho), and with a soundtrack including Sonic Youth, Subhumans, Billy Corgan, and Hasil Adkins, the film has a raunchy, Southern appeal similar to that of Leroy's books. Cameos appearances by Winona Ryder and Marilyn Manson add rock star power. Argento keeps it sexy, as this is as much a story of the mother-child bond as it is about the malformation of a boy's sexual identity. True or not, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is a sincere yet stylized rendition of a terribly sad story. --Trinie Dalton

Description

Seven-year-old Jeremiah lived a calm, comfortable life in the care of a loving foster home until the day his young mother Sarah (Argento) came to take him against his will into her reckless life of turmoil and depravity, between desolate truck-stops, flea bag motels, strip joints, drug den and deadbeat surrogate dads until he finds himself in the custody of his ultra-religious grandparents. Having adapted to his new life as a Christian fundamentalist, Sarah returns to claim her son. Bound by a love only a mother and son could have for each other, Sarah pulls Jeremiah further and further into her dementia. When Sarah is finally and wholly consumed by drugs, prostitution and violence, Jeremiah is forced into a desperate struggle to survive the madness of his surroundings.

Paradise Lost - The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

Average customer rating:

Paradise Lost - The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
Starring: Jason Baldwin , Steven Branch , Christopher Byers , John Mark Byers , and Melissa Byers
Director: Bruce Sinofsky
Manufacturer: New Video Group
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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The Staircase

ASIN: B000AYEIY0
Release Date: 2005-10-25

Amazon.com

On May 6, 1993, the mutilated bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found in a shallow creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. A short time later police arrested three local teenagers, linking the boys' killings to a satanic ritual. One of the boys confessed. The intriguing court case was about to unfold as filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky ventured forth to make this documentary. They captured footage of not only courtroom proceedings but also interviews with the major players in trial--parents, suspects, lawyers. The documentary filmmakers, whose previous film, Brother's Keeper, is as intriguing of a crime story you'll ever see, tells this story without re-creations or flashbacks. The film makes a clear argument that the court trial may not be about witchcraft but a witch hunt. As with any great drama, the faces and situations are etched upon the viewer; however, we are dealing with real lives and real crimes (told gruesomely and necessarily by police photographs and videotape), and the impact is far greater. And so is the maddening ambivalence of the trial. Like the O.J. Simpson fiasco, a verdict is reached but the truth is questioned. Did police make fatal errors the night of the crime? Do last-minute clues lead to justice? Who's lying on the stand? As with Roger and Me and Hoop Dreams, we have a provocative single incident that holds a mirror to many of society's problems. The results are just more horrifying. The Emmy-winning film was followed four years later by Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. --Doug Thomas

Description

One of the most influential documentaries in recent years, the Sundance favorite PARADISE LOST is an emotionally raw, must-see crime doc from two of today's most exciting filmmakers--Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (the team behind Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Brother's Keeper). This dark odyssey began with the tragic murders of three 8-year-old boys, whose bodies were discovered in a shallow creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. The community demanded justice, and one month later the police delivered: three local teenagers accused of sacrificing the boys as part of a Satanic ritual. Despite overwhelming public antipathy towards them, defendants Damian Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley steadfastly maintained their innocence. Although the trial produced virtually no physical evidence connecting the defendants to the crime, the town, the jury, and the police felt that they had their killers, and used the young men's penchant for heavy metal music and black clothing and a fascination with the Wicca religion as evidence of their guilt. With unprecedented access to all the players, Berlinger and Sinofsky captured the events as they unfolded before their cameras. From actual courtroom footage and clandestine jailhouse interviews to behind-the-scenes strategy meetings and intimate portraits of grief-stricken families, PARADISE LOST is a shocking yet uniquely American real-life drama. DVD Features: Exclusive Trial Footage; Timeline of Events; Trial Updates; Theatrical Trailer; Filmmaker Biographies; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

Picnic at Hanging Rock - Criterion Collection

Average customer rating:

Mesmorizingly Strange and Mysterious..!
Not Perfect, But Haunting
Pale Herzog imitation.
Wow
Un film magnifique

Picnic at Hanging Rock - Criterion Collection
Starring: Rachel Roberts , Vivean Gray , Helen Morse , Kirsty Child , and Tony Llewellyn-Jones
Director: Peter Weir
Manufacturer: Criterion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 0780021134
Release Date: 1998-11-03

Amazon.com essential video

Situated somewhere between supernatural horror and lush Victorian melodrama, director Peter Weir's lyrical, enigmatic masterpiece is an imaginative tease. The setting is a proper turn-of-the century Australian boarding school for girls, a suffocating institution built on strict moral codes, repressed sexuality, and a subtle but enforced class structure. As the film opens, girls draped in immaculate white dress prepare for a picnic at the nearby volcanic formation, Hanging Rock, and Weir hangs an air of dark foreboding over the proceeding. "You'll have to love someone else, because I won't be here very long," says one virginal girl, Miranda, to her friend. Her words are prophetic: during the picnic, Miranda, along with two other girls and an uptight schoolmistress, vanish into the rocks. While a search party repeatedly returns to the rock to look for either the girls or the reasons for their disappearance, Weir leaves the mystery unsolved. Like Antonioni's L'Avventura, the vanishing is open to numerous interpretations--both rational and illusory--but Weir drops enough allegorical clues that it feels like a parable. He transforms the landscape and weather into menacing and eerie images; outlines of faces can be seen in the rocks, while the oppressive heat beating down on the picnic doubles as an atmospheric metaphor for the girls' unbearable social and sexual confinement. These images and other plot twists toward the end hint that this mysterious vanishing, on some level, was actually a form of spiritual escape--the only out, other than death, from the film's bleak, tightly structured community. Regardless of how you see it, though, this hypnotic puzzle remains the highlight of the '70s Australian New Wave. The DVD version presents the film in letterbox form. --Dave McCoy

Description

Twenty years after it swept Australia into the international film spotlight, Peter Weir's stunning 1975 masterpiece remains as ineffable as the unanswerable mystery at its core. A Valentine's Day picnic at an ancient volcanic outcropping turns to disaster for the residents of Mrs. Appleyard's school when a few young girls inexplicably vanish on Hanging Rock. A lyrical, meditative film charged with suppressed longings, Picnic at Hanging Rock is at long last available in a pristine widescreen director's cut with a newly-minted Dolby® digital 5.1 channel soundtrack.

Customer Reviews:

Mesmorizingly Strange and Mysterious..!.......2007-06-15

I still remember first viewing this one in an "Art" theatre about 27 years ago , and have watched it since then from time to time, always finding something new and slightly unhinging. The story is told elsewhere. Last night, I really noticed such odd things as the insects eating the Valentine's Day cake, cut by Miranda the "Botticelli Angel " (actually Venus), whose disappearance is really the most disturbing to most of the characters, while the other slim blonde with the glasses is practically ignored. Nothing indicates the movements of the teacher who also disappears. Also, the other nature scenes, including a fleeting koala bear and serpent, plus the constantly eerie cloud and rock formations, add due the very strange atmosphere, along with the flute music, and fine use of Beethoven's Adagio from the 5th Piano Concerto. And the final action of the Schoolmarm? Does she feel some guilt about her attitudes and her repressive air..(Check out that really odd hair style!). The scene where the brunette (very good looking, perhaps needless to say) returns to the gym class is right out of Lord of the Flies, as the straight and narrow teacher keeps playing her piano waltz. The photography here is really unique, even beautiful, and dreamlike, as is the entire movie. Perhaps the many dreams and mirages in the story, including a long lost kid-sister, are meant to wrap the whole movie in an even weirder dream, since it is definitely tricky deciding what is real and what is imagination. But this may be the final lesson of the whole, very finely done, and very "Artsy" movie!

Not Perfect, But Haunting.......2007-05-30

"Picnic at Hanging Rock" is the relatively obscure first film by Peter Weir, who has gone on to direct "The Truman Show" and "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World." I know him best for "The Last Wave" and "Gallipoli." This film is considered his masterpiece by many film circles, but is largely unknown to most of the world. Probably because it was unavailable for years on either video or DVD and just kind of spirited away. It might also be because of the plot, which is going to be a huge let down for many people. The film takes place on St. Valentine's Day in 1900 in Australia at an all girls' school. In the opening shots, Weir establishes the innocence of the girls...In fact; he hammers it into the ground, which only reveals the sexual hysteria that's occurring among them. On this day, they're going to have a picnic at Hanging Rock, a volcanic structure that provides one of the most haunting backdrops I've ever witnessed on film. The head of the school, Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) is portrayed as a villainous woman who tells one student, Sara, early on in the film that she won't be attending the picnic. There's no reason given why. Anyway, the group of girls arrive at the rock and four of the girls decide to go explore it. One of them returns screaming...Later, a teacher goes to find the girls. She and two of the three girls are never found. If this weren't the most talked about part of the movie you would be furious at me for revealing this information. After all, how can a movie that's built on a disappearance end with no conclusion. How can the disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher never be explained? "Picnic at Hanging Rock" reminds me of "L'Avventura" by Michelangelo Antonioni. In that film, a man's wife disappears and is never seen again. In an interview, Peter Weir said that he tried to make the film hypnotic enough to keep viewers in a trance trying to figure out what happened to the girls. True, we're given a lot of options and ideas. Were they raped and murdered by two men that were there? If so, why would those men attempt to find them? Did they fall through a crevice? Did aliens abduct them? When one girl is found, she's found without shoes...How were her feet unscathed by the rock? It's all creepy stuff, but the film itself doesn't fly by. It seems to me that it's got a feature-length idea, but not enough actual story to keep us (the audience) entertained. It's a creepy film that could be a lot better if remade today. Hopefully if that happens they don't change the inconclusive aspect, but merely make the film a lot more hypnotic, provide more clues for the audience to come to their own conclusion, and make a film that's a lot more entertaining than this.

GRADE: B

Pale Herzog imitation........2007-05-22

In the first half hour of "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a bunch of young girls from a disciplinarian, Victorian-style boarding school in Australia go out on a picnic (closely watched and supervised, of course) to an ancient landform called the Hanging Rock. Four of the girls decide to go off and explore the rock. For no apparent reason, they vanish, as if into thin air. One is later found, and three are never seen again, but the disappearance is never explained in the film.

At least, it's not explained with logic. But the director means to make this seemingly irrational disappearance into a symbol of the conflict between the girls' repressed youthful urges and their strict environment. The event occurs on Valentine's Day, and the film opens with the girls giggling and demonstrating their affection for one another. It all looks quite innocent, but there's a dark angst-ridden girl who writes passionate love poetry dedicated to one of the girls who disappears, which clearly telegraphs the film's point. And later on, we find that one of the strictest teachers at the school (to highlight her outward lack of emotion, she's a science teacher) also disappears at the rock, and she is last seen running up the slope while wearing only her underwear.

This setup is contrived, but it could still have been made into a compelling film. This would have required a Werner Herzog, a man who knows how to evoke a sense of savage irrationality in depictions of nature. I even suspect that Herzog's "Aguirre, The Wrath Of God" provided the inspiration for this film. In the opening scene of "Aguirre," a party of Spanish explorers slowly moves through a path in the Andes Mountains, and there is a sense that they are pushing into something vast and ancient, beyond their understanding. Peter Weir wants to do something similar in this film, but unfortunately he can't. His Hanging Rock just has no mystery in it. Actually, it looks like a fine place for a picnic. There's no hint of unknown danger. The sun is shining, the birds are out singing. The rock looks perfectly friendly, there's nothing imposing or aloof about it. Weir films it in very conventional shots. Even when his camera is moving, the rock looks static.

So, when Weir wants to create suspense, he has to resort to cheap tricks. The girls walk forward with glazed eyes and intone such silly lines as, "A surprising number of people is without purpose." They also quote Poe -- we're all "a dream within a dream," you see. Then they take off their shoes and stockings -- take that, Victorian morality! -- and spin around for a long time on the rock. A shrill flute melody plays, indicating that something weird is afoot. But there's still no feeling of danger, so one of the girls has to have a sudden fit of hysteria and run back down the slope screaming. When all else fails, go for volume.

But in some sense, this part isn't even the point, which is why it's over in half an hour. The rest of the film shows how the disappearance affects others, like the headmistress of the school or the dark angst-ridden girl or various townspeople. This is where Weir's real interest is. The disappearance itself is just a token "strange event" that creates some chaos in the orderly Victorian world, so that we might see that world's reaction. And Weir wants to show that the orderly Victorian world is completely incapable of dealing with strange events. The second something comes up that appears to have no logical explanation (and the film painstakingly explains that nobody has any idea why the girls vanished), that's it, society is completely paralyzed and soon collapses.

Sometimes this part of the film becomes sort of interesting to watch. The best scenes in the film are the ones in which Michael, a pampered mama's boy type, suddenly becomes obsessed with finding the missing girls, and charges off to the rock by himself. He only finds a piece of an undergarment, which causes him to act moody and disturbed. Since he seemed so unsure of himself before, his transformation has a certain dramatic effect. His obsession is then transmitted to his pal, a lowly hired hand, who previously didn't care about the disappearance.

But Weir isn't content with these minor changes and accomplishments, he really earnestly believes that Victorian repression leads to irrational catastrophe, and this causes him to overdo it. In the subsequent scenes, it turns out that everybody, literally everybody at the boarding school is angst-ridden, fighting dark desires, and generally losing it. The timid music teacher has fits of hysteria and ties the dark angst-ridden girl to the wall, with blatant crucifixion symbolism. The steel-willed headmistress turns to drink, and commits murder for absolutely no reason. (It really makes no sense why she'd do it when she could just have expelled her victim, which is what she was going to do anyway.) When the one girl is found and returns to the school, her classmates shriek and claw at her while the camera spins around.

Eventually, the film ends, and there's really not that much to say about it. But it's not a mystery, since it isn't tense or suspenseful, and it's not particularly emotionally moving, because by the end the characters' reactions seem completely artificial. And it's hard to call it atmospheric, because deep down, it's driven not by Nature's savagery, but by the same kind of cheap and extremely conventional rebellion as the director's later and more famous "Dead Poets Society."

Wow.......2007-04-16

This is the kind of movie no one would have the guts to make today--maybe not even as an indie movie. It's a horror movie that pretends that it's not a horror movie. Just as the girls have to pretend they are not sexual beings but this repression only ignites their sexuality further, Weir pretends this is a straight Victorian drama but that only heightens the mystery and horror further. Modern filmakers seem to have abandoned the "less is more" approach to their own detriment. People may find it boring--but it's to serve the theme. Weir tells his story the way Victorians lived their lives--with everything swept under the rug.

And there is a point to the second half of the movie. It's a retelling of the first half. Miranda and her girls are done in by the hidden mystery and supernatural cruelty of nature. Sarah is done in by the hidden cruelty of human nature which lies behind that perfect Victorian etiquette. The rock and the headmistress are basically the same character.

Un film magnifique.......2007-04-02

Que de poésie dans ce beau film : l'histoire est orginale, les décors splEndides, la photographie somptueuse.
Un vrai délice

Spirit of the Beehive - Criterion Collection

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Spirit of the Beehive - Criterion Collection
Starring: Fernando Fernán Gómez , Teresa Gimpera , Ana Torrent , Isabel Tellería , and Ketty de la Cámara
Director: Víctor Erice
Manufacturer: Criterion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000G8NXZU
Release Date: 2006-09-19

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Victor Erice's hauntingly beautiful The Spirit of the Beehive features one of the most unforgettable child performances in the history of cinema. Hailed as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s, Erice's visually elegant "poem of awakening" takes place in a small Castilian village in the early 1940s, as echoes of the Spanish Civil Wart can still be heard throughout the countryside. It is here, in this richly rural atmosphere, that six-year-old Ana (played by six-year-old Ana Torrent) is introduced to alternate world of myth and imagination when she attends a town-hall showing of James Whale's Frankenstein, an experience that forever alters young Ana's perception of the world around her... and her ability to mold reality to her own imaginative purposes. Is she using her imagination to escape what is essentially a bleak reality, or is she protecting herself with an inner world of innocence, to counter the darker worldview of her slightly older sister Isabel? While her emotionally distant parents go about their mundane daily affairs, Ana's world becomes the film's mesmerizing focus, and The Spirit of the Beehive unfolds as an enigmatic yet totally captivating study of childhood unfettered by the strictures of reason. In Erice's capable hands, young Ana Torrent really isn't performing at all; her presence on screen is so natural, and so deeply expressive, that you almost feel as if she's living in the story being told--a story that retains its mystery and beauty in equal measure, full of visual symbolism and metaphor (including the title, which yields multiple meanings), yet never self-consciously "arty" or artificial. Simply put, this is one of the timeless masterpieces of cinema, produced at a time when Franco's repressive dictatorship was finally giving way to greater freedoms of expression. No survey of international cinema is complete without at least one viewing of this uniquely moving film. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVDs
Disc 1 presents a new, restored high-definition digital transfer of The Spirit of the Beehive, with a new and improved English subtitle translation. The supplements on Disc 2 are thoroughly fascinating, beginning with "The Footprints of a Spirit," a very well-made documentary about the making of the film, combining present-day (2006) visits to the film's original locations along with interviews with director Victor Erice, producer Elías Querejeta, coscreenwriter Ángel Fernández Santos, and actress Ana Torrent (now a beautiful 40-year-old veteran of many Spanish films). "Victor Erice in Madrid" is an extensive and thought-provoking interview, conducted by Japanese filmmaker Hideyuki Miyaoka, in which Erice discusses his films, and specifically The Spirit of the Beehive, including his observation that the film's shot of young Ana Torrent watching Frankenstein for the first time (a real-life reaction filmed with documentary realism) represents "the most important moment I have ever captured on film." Two other 2006 interviews round out the supplements: One with the great Spanish actor Fernando Fernán Gómez (who describes how he "couldn't understand a word" of the Beehive screenplay, but played the role of Ana's father because he needed the work), and another with scholar Linda C. Ehrlich, who astutely discusses the film's visual qualities (including its warm color palette and the influence of Vermeer's paintings on Erice's sunlit interiors), the significance of Frankenstein to the story, and the qualities that made The Spirit of the Beehive both timely (in terms of its sociopolitical context) and timeless. The accompanying booklet contains an informative essay on the lasting influence of Erice's film, including the startling revelation that Erice (as of 2006) had directed only two more feature-length films (El Sur and the documentary Dream of Light) since The Spirit of the Beehive was released in 1973. --Jeff Shannon

Description

The Criterion Collection is proud to present Víctor Erice's spellbinding The Spirit of the Beehive, widely regarded as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s. In a small Castilian village in 1940, directly following the country's devastating civil war, six-year-old Ana attends a traveling movie show of Frankenstein and becomes haunted by her memory of it. Produced as Franco's long regime was nearing its end, The Spirit of the Beehive is both a bewitching portrait of a child's inner life and an elusive, cloaked meditation of a nation trapped under tyranny—from one of cinema's most mysterious auteurs.

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