This ground-breaking collection brings together Walerian Borowczyk's key films from a twenty-five-year period stretching from 1959 through to 1984. This unique release includes five of Borowczyk s provocative feature films: Theatre de Monsieur et Madame Kabal, Goto, l ile d amour, Blanche, Contes Immoraux and La Bête as well as his ground-breaking short films from this period, in digital high definition restorations approved by the director s widow, Ligia Branice. In addition to exclusive documentaries featuring cast and crew, an hour long portrait of Borowczyk is included, featuring the director s musings on painting, animation and sex. Arrow Academy's Walerian Borowczyk Collection is a vital addition to the collection of anyone interested in either world cinema, animation or experimental film. 5-DISC SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS HD restorations of the five features High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations Original uncompressed mono 1.0 audio English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Reversible sleeves featuring Borowczyk s original poster designs and artwork THEATRE OF MR AND MRS KABAL The short films Astronauts (1959), The Concert (1962), Grandmother s Encyclopaedia (1963), Renaissance (1963), Angels Games (1964), Joachim s Dictionary (1965), Rosalie (1966), Gavotte (1967), Diptych (1967), The Phonograph (1969), The Greatest Love of All Time (1978) and Scherzo Infernal (1984) Introduction by filmmaker and animator Terry Gilliam Film is Not a Sausage, a documentary about Borowczyk s animated work featuring Borowczyk, producer Dominique Duvergé-Ségrétin, assistant André Heinrich and composer Bernard Parmegiani Blow Ups, a visual essay by Daniel Bird about Borowczyk s works on paper Commercials by Walerian Borowczyk: Holy Smoke (1963), The Museum (1964) and Tom Thumb (1966) GOTO, ISLE OF LOVE Introduction by artist and Turner Prize nominee Craigie Horsfield The Concentration Universe, a new interview programme featuring actor Jean-Pierre Andréani, cameraman Noël Véry and camera assistant Jean-Pierre Platel The Profligate Door, a new documentary about Borowczyk s sound sculptures featuring curator Maurice Corbet BLANCHE Introduction by Schalcken the Painter director Leslie Megahey Ballad of Imprisonment, a documentary about the film featuring producer Dominique Duvergé-Ségrétin, assistant director André Heinrich, camera operator Noël Véry and assistant Patrice Leconte Obscure Pleasures: A Portrait of Walerian Borowczyk, a newly edited archival interview in which Borowczyk discusses painting, cinema and sex Gunpoint, a documentary short by Peter Graham produced and edited by Borowczyk IMMORAL TALES Introduction by Borowczyk expert Daniel Bird Love Reveals Itself, a video essay about the film featuring production manager Dominique Duvergé-Ségrétin and cinematographer Noël Véry Obscure Pleasures: A Portrait of Valerian Borowczyk, a newly edited archival interview in which the filmmaker discusses painting, cinema and sex Blow Ups, a visual essay by Daniel Bird about Borowczyk s works on paper Theatrical trailer THE BEAST An introduction by film critic Peter Bradshaw Borowczyk s erotic short film Venus on the Half-Shell (1975) The Making of the Beast, an hour-long documentary with rare on-set footage, narrated by cameraman Noël Véry Frenzy of Ecstasy, a visual essay about The Beast s design and the film s unmade sequel Original theatrical trailer
She confused him for a therapist and told him her deepest secrets. Now two people who never should have met are discovering there's nothing more seductive than the truth. When a French woman tells her marital troubles to a man she mistakes for a psychiatrist they soon form an unusual relationship... Nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival.
Summer 1910. Several tourists have vanished while relaxing on the beautiful beaches of the Channel Coast in Northern France. Infamous inspectors Machin and Malfoy soon gather that the epicentre of these mysterious disappearances must be Slack Bay, a unique site where the Slack river and the sea join only at high tide. There lives a small community of fishermen and other oyster farmers. Among them evolves a curious family, the Brufort, renowned ferrymen of the Slack Bay, lead by the father nicknamed The Eternal , who rules as best as he can on his prankster bunch of sons, especially the impetuous 18 years-old Ma Loute. Towering high above the bay stands the van Peteghems mansion. Every summer, this bourgeois family all degenerate and decadent from inbreeding stagnates in the villa, not without mingling during their leisure hours of walking, sailing or bathing, with the ordinary local people, Ma Loute and the other Bruforts. Over the course of five days, as starts a peculiar love story between Ma Loute and the young and mischievous Billie van Peteghem, confusion and mystification will descend on both families, shaking their convictions, foundations and way of life. After P'tit Quinquin, the latest film by Bruno Dumont finds once again its inspiration in slapstick comedy, at turns bleak and funny, with the most amazing cast of French actors whose performances take the film to another level.
Suzanne (Catherine Deneuve, Belle de Jour, 8 Women) is a submissive, trophy wife, housebound in the French provincial town of Sainte-Gudule. When her rich husband is taken hostage by his striking workers, it is time for Suzanne to transform herself into an assertive woman of action to take charge of his umbrella factory. Complications arise in the form of the union leader, a former lover (Gerald Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac, Green Card) who still holds a burning flame for Suzanne...
Offbeat French drama from director Fran�ois Ozon that explores the relationship between a literature student and the talented pupil whose gift for description he attempts to nurture. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) usually despairs about the quality of the creative writing his pupils produce so when he receives a piece from the previously unremarkable student Claude (Ernst Umhauer) that displays promise he is moved to pledge assistance to the boy. Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that Clau...
Laurent Tirard's sumptuous and seductive comedy provides a fictionalised account of the mysterious 'lost months' in the celebrated playwright's life.
As a way of getting on in the world working for wages and constantly being in danger of being fired or laid off is a pretty poor system. In this movie pretty young Aimee decides that marriage to the right man is a much better bargain. Though she is very fond of an impoverished bookstore owner the man who meets her strict criteria is a famous and high-strung restaurant critic. After cohabiting with her new spouse for a while she goes for the really big-time payoff that comes with divorce and stages everything entirely to her satisfaction.
Eric Rohmer is one of France's most celebrated directors. This collection brings together eight of his most influential works including all six of his Comedies and Proverbs. The Aviator's Wife: Francois loves Anne. However his night-job at the post office means they rarely get to spend much time together. One day he sees her leaving home with her ex Christian who had come to break up with her for good. Reeling from the news Anne lets Francois fall prey to his jealous ima
Serge (Fabrice Luchini In the House) is a retired great actor living as a recluse amid the windswept landscape of the Île de Ré. Gauthier (Lambert Wilson Of Gods and Men) a fellow actor currently enjoying a career high as a TV heart-throb visits Serge and tempts him to make a comeback with a production of Molière's play 'The Misanthrope'. Before agreeing Serge insists on seven days of rehearsal and the two soon find themselves at each other's throats. Warm and witty with intelligence in spades this likable French comedy about two arrogant yet affable middle-aged men is like a French version of The Trip.
The moving story of a Parisian who is sick and thinks he may die at any moment. His condition makes him look at all the people he meets in a new and different way.
The debut feature of Cédric Klapisch, this lacerating critique of modern management techniques and globalisation marked the emergence of a major new talent in French Cinema. Parisian department store Les Grandes Galeries is failing. In a last-ditch effort to save the 100-year-old store, the board hire Mr. Lepetit (Fabrice Luchini) and give him one year to turn things around. He begins with the staff, a microcosm of French society, who must learn to believe in themselves and each other. At once warmly human and bitingly satirical, Little Nothings was an early entry in the kind of comedy-drama mix that French cinema excels at, and Klapisch would prove himself a master of. Available on home video for the first time in English speaking countries. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High definition digital transfer Original uncompressed mono audio Newly translated optional English subtitles Leçon de cinéma de Cédric Klapisch et Jackie Berroyer a 52-minute documentary on the film makers at work Ce qui me meut [What Moves Me] (1986) a 24-minute short film by Cédric Klapisch Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Scott Saslow FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector's booklet featuring new writing by Ginette Vincendeau
Offbeat French drama from director Fran�ois Ozon that explores the relationship between a literature student and the talented pupil whose gift for description he attempts to nurture. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) usually despairs about the quality of the creative writing his pupils produce so when he receives a piece from the previously unremarkable student Claude (Ernst Umhauer) that displays promise he is moved to pledge assistance to the boy. Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that Clau...
Eric Rohmer's Claire's Knee is one of his series of "Moral Tales", though it deals delicately with areas of intense moral ambiguity rather than in any obvious certainty. Jerome, a man holidaying at the very end of his youth, allows his old friend Aurora to co-opt him in her experiments with the hearts of two teenage girls. Sensitive gawky Laura fixates on him, but knows enough to realise he is dangerous to her, whereas Claire, for whom he develops a vague obsession, largely ignores him as a sexual being. He develops elaborate theories in justification of what he does and says, and the film does not dismiss these theories, while allowing for the possibility that Jerome is nothing but a manipulative self-deceived letch. This is a movie with a delicate visual palette; Nestor Almendros' elegiac camera work constantly makes clear that for all the characters this is a summer vacation with consequences. It is also a conversation piece in which almost nothing happens--the most Jerome ever allows himself is to stroke Claire's knee--and the interesting thing is how all the intense talk and extended scenes of one-to-one dialogue make that quite enough to sustain our fascinated interest. --Roz Kaveney
When his great friend the Duke of Nevers is slain in a dastardly assassination plot by Count Gonzague (Luchini) fencing master Lagardere (Auteuil) swears to avenge the murder and to take care of his orphaned daughter Aurore (Gillain). Sixteen years later after secretly hiding with a touring theatre troup Lagardere returns to the sumptuous Parisian courts to honour his deadly oath. Disguising himself as Gonzague's hunchback manservant Lagardere infiltrates the Count's entourage...
French leading man Dainel Auteuil duels like a master in this swashbuckling adventure with swordfights treachery revenge and murder.
Suzanne (Catherine Deneuve, Belle de Jour, 8 Women) is a submissive, trophy wife, housebound in the French provincial town of Sainte-Gudule. When her rich husband is taken hostage by his striking workers, it is time for Suzanne to transform herself into an assertive woman of action to take charge of his umbrella factory. Complications arise in the form of the union leader, a former lover (Gerald Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac, Green Card) who still holds a burning flame for Suzanne...
Michel Racine is the feared President of the Assize Court. As hard on himself as he is on others, he is known as the two-digit judge because his minimal sentence always exceeds ten years. Although known for his icy demeanor, even towards his colleagues, everything goes topsy-turvy when Michel discovers a juror on one of his murder trials is Ditte Lorensen-Coteret. Six years earlier, Racine had fallen in love with her, but their relationship had become estranged. She is perhaps the only woman he has ever loved, and the only one to have witnessed his kinder side. Starring Fabrice Luchini (Paris) and Sidse Babett Knudsen (Inferno), COURTED is a tender tale of self-discovery.
La Femme de l'aviateur was the first in Eric Rohmer's celebrated Comedies and Proverbs series. Francois (Philippe Marlaud) loves Anne (Marie Rivire). However his nightshift job at the post office means they rarely get to spend much time together. One day he sees her leaving home with her ex Christian (Mathieu Carrire) who had come to break up with her for good. Reeling from the news Anne lets Francois fall prey to his jealous imagination. Obsessed with the idea that she may hav
Full Moon in Paris, the fourth of Eric Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs, is also the most ironic and, in many ways, the most judgmental of his films. Louise (Pascale Ogier), a restless designer bored with sleepy suburban life outside of Paris, lives with her lover, Remy (Tcheky Karyo), a stable architect happy with a calm home life and a long-term relationship. The independent Louise decides to move back into her old Paris apartment during the week, losing herself in the bustle of dinner parties and nightclubs and single men, while spending her weekends back with Remy. Louise becomes briefly entangled with another man, a spontaneous musician who is the opposite of Remy, but in a neat twist on the formula, Remy himself drifts to another--at the suggestion of Louise herself. Willowy Ogier's kittenish sexuality and zest for life are wrapped in a self-absorbed determination that borders on indifference, but for the most part this is another wryly witty look at modern love from the master of the sophisticated romantic comedy. Fabrice Luchini plays Louise's best friend and conniving confidante, Octave, and Laszlo Szabo appears as a café patron who pontificates on the magical effects of the full moon. Ogier, who died shortly after the film's release, designed many of the handsome sets. Rohmer followed this with perhaps his most generous character study, the modestly magical romantic adventure Summer. --Sean Axmaker
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