"Actor: Udo Samel"

• The Michael Haneke Collection | DVD | (09/10/2006) from £22.99   |  Saving you £17.00 (73.95%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Hidden (aka. Cache) (2005): Writer/director Michael Haneke delivers a masterpiece of unsettlement with Hidden (Cache). Life seems perfect for Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) a bourgeois Parisian couple who live in a comfortable home with their adolescent son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). But when an anonymous videotape turns up on their doorstep showing their house under surveillance from across the street their calm life begins to spiral out of control. Subsequent videotapes arrive accompanied by mysterious drawings and gradually Georges becomes convinced that he's being tormented by a figure from his past. But when he confronts him the man assures Georges he is innocent. A growing sense of guilt begins to rise in Georges as he recalls his less-than-angelic childhood yet for some reason he's unable to be completely honest with Anne. Soon their happy home is an emotional battleground leading to a climax that is breathtaking in its ferocity and ambiguousness. The Time Of The Wolf (2003): Michael Haneke directs this nightmarish vision of a post-apocalyptic world in which society has completely broken down. Isabelle Huppert plays Anne who flees the city with her husband Georges and their two children in the hope of finding safe refuge at the family's country home. But soon after arriving they learn they have made a terrible mistake and must embark on a gruelling odyssey through a country totally devastated by disaster without even the most basic of utilities such as water and electricity. Demonstrating yet again his unique and uncompromising cinematic vision Haneke assembles an all star cast for this typically challenging tense and gripping drama. The Piano Teacher (2001): The Piano Teacher is a powerful and controversial drama from award-winning Austrian film-maker Michael Haneke (Funny Games Code Unknown). Isabelle Huppert gives a performance of astounding emotional intensity as Erika Kohut a repressed woman in her late thirties who teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory and lives with her tyrannical mother (Annie Girardot) with whom she has a volatile love-hate relationship. But when one of Erika's students the handsome and assured Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel) attempts to seduce her the barriers that she has carefully erected around her claustrophobic world are shattered unleashing a previously inhibited extreme and uncontrollable desire. Code Unknown (2000): Paris. A very busy boulevard. Someone throws a crumpled piece of paper into the outstretched hands of a beggar-woman. This is the bond which for an instant links the trajectories of several very different characters : Anne a young actress is on the threshold of making it in the cinema. Her boyfriend Georges is a war photographer he is rarely in France. His father is a farmer. Georges' younger brother Jean has no interest in taking over the farm. Amadou is a music teacher in an institute for deaf-mute children. His father a taxi driver originates from Africa. His little sister is deaf and it's because of her that Amadou has chosen his profession. Maria comes from Romania and sends home the money she gets from begging. Having been deported she goes back home to spend some time with her family before embarking on another humiliating journey to France. What do they have in common these characters and those whose path they cross?

• Goodbye Berlin | DVD | (28/08/2017) from £11.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  While his mother is in rehab and his father is on a business trip with his assistant, 14-year-old outsider Marik is spending the summer holidays bored and alone at his parents' villa, until rebellious teenager Tschick appears. Tschick, a Russian immigrant and an outcast, steals a car and decides to set off on a journey away from Berlin with Marik tagging along for the ride. So begins a wild adventure where the two experience the trip of a lifetime and share a summer that they will never forget.

• My Best Enemy | DVD | (12/09/2011) from £3.98   |  Saving you £12.01 (301.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Poland 1943: An unlikely pair - a concentration camp prisoner and a captain in Hitler's notorious SS - free themselves from the wreckage of a crashed SS airplane. The two appear to be strangely familiar with each other and the extent of their extraordinary relationship is thrillingly revealed.

• J. Strauss II: Die Fledermaus -- Glyndebourne | DVD | (20/02/2004) from £24.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (20.01%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Johann Strauss II's wonderfully convoluted and ingenious Viennese farce Die Fledermaus is a masterpiece of operetta. The tale spins waltz-like around the philandering Von Eisenstein (Thomas Allen), his wife Rosalinde (Pamela Armstrong), who is tempted by singing teacher Alfred (Par Lindskog), and Adele (Lyubov Petrova), Rosalinde's maid. Following Shakespeare's romantic comedy template there is much mistaken identity, confusion of purpose and cross-dressing, with the events unfolding around an increasingly drunken masked ball and the morning after in the local jail. The champagne-fuelled entertainment carries various satiric undertones, but this adaptation by director Stephen Lawless and Daniel Dooner emphasises colour, wit and flamboyance, always ensuring the jokes work well for a modern audience. The production requires acting as strong as the excellent singing, and Thomas Allen delivers a subtly layered interpretation of Eisenstein, while Pamela Armstrong's Rosalinde offers a winning study in smouldering sensuality, well contrasted with Lyubov Petrova's more directly sexual Adele. The revolving set mirrors the swirling Strauss dances and the elegant design is a perfect match for the boldly extrovert costumes. If this Glyndebourne 2003 production doesn't match Dame Joan Sutherland's retirement performance at the Royal Opera House in 1977 for historic value, it is easily as much fun and the production values are second to none. On the DVD: Die Fledermaus is presented on a two-disc edition with Acts 1 and 2 on the first disc and Act 3 and 37 minutes of extras on the second DVD. The 16:9 anamorphically enhanced image is as strong and detailed as BBC live digital video recording can be and the sound is offered in excellent stereo, as well as superb 5.1 DTS, which places the listener in the acoustic equivalent of the best seat in the house. The extras begin with 20 minutes of short but worthwhile interviews with Pamela Armstrong, Thomas Allen, Hakan Hagegard, conductor Vladimir Jurowski and director Stephen Lawless. There is a five-minute feature on the history of the waltz and a four-minute humorous interlude in which Udo Samel explores the pleasures of champagne in his character as the gaoler Frosch. More substantial if less entertaining is Return of the Architect (8 min), a look at the design and construction of the modern Glyndebourne opera house. The set is completed with routine photo and costume galleries and a nicely produced booklet illustrated with good quality colour photographs. Optional subtitles are available in Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Michael Haneke Trilogy | DVD | (25/05/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  This three disc box set presents three early masterpieces 'The Seventh Continent' 'Benny's Video' and '71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance'. Provocative daring and visionary Michael Haneke has established himself as one of the world's most distinctive and intelligent contemporary filmmakers. The Seventh Continent: Based on a true story Haneke's first theatrical feature is a disturbing portrait of familial disintegration which he describes as a depiction of his native Austria's 'progressive emotional glaciation'. Set over a three year period it documents how the mundane day to day routines of a middle class family alienate them from the world and each other until suddenly and shockingly their lives self-destruct. Addressing themes that would inform much of his later work - the breakdown of society violence and the media - 'The Seventh Continent' is both intelligent and masterfully composed. Benny's Video: Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Haneke's disturbing film portrays the alienation of a young boy whose experience of the world is refracted through the lens of his video camera and his television screen. Arno Frisch later to play one of the psychopathic young men in Funny Games plays the 14 year-old Benny who brings a girl home to his parents' empty apartment where he commits a shocking act of casual violence. As with his later Funny Games Haneke poses provocative and challenging questions about voyeurism and depictions of violence. 71 Fragments Of A Chronology Of Chance: Haneke's articulate critique of the isolating effects of western society the media and television in particular is composed of an intricate series of unrelated scenes culminating in an apparently motiveless act of violence. Perfectly paced and executed Haneke's skilful weaving of these tableaux into a coherent and compelling whole is mesmerising and strangely beautiful.

• The Seventh Continent | DVD | (25/05/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Based on a true story Haneke's first theatrical feature is a disturbing portrait of familial disintegration which he describes as a depiction of his native Austria's 'progressive emotional glaciation'. Set over a three year period it documents how the mundane day to day routines of a middle class family alienate them from the world and each other until suddenly and shockingly their lives self-destruct. Addressing themes that would inform much of his later work - the breakdown of society violence and the media - 'The Seventh Continent' is both intelligent and masterfully composed.

• 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance | DVD | (25/05/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Haneke's articulate critique of the isolating effects of western society the media and television in particular is composed of an intricate series of unrelated scenes culminating in an apparently motiveless act of violence. Perfectly paced and executed Haneke's skilful weaving of these tableaux into a coherent and compelling whole is mesmerising and strangely beautiful.

• Killer Condom | DVD | (14/02/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.38