Three Lives and Only One Death (Raoul Ruiz)

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feihong · #1 Post by **feihong** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:06 am

Can't find the Raul Ruiz on DVD post anymore.

I just got the r2 DVD of TIME REGAINED, and while not great, it sure was blisteringly head-and-shoulders above the Kino r1. Got me thinking yet again about wonderful Raul Ruiz films that aren't out on DVD - so many!

Does anyone know if there's a DVD of THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH? a personal favorite of mine. Macello Mastroianni gave quite a nice performance, as I remember it from VHS. Everywhere I've looked suggests that no, there isn't any DVD. Still, any info is appreciated!

feihong · #2 Post by **feihong** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:26 am

Oh, my bad. Here it is on DVDbeaver

Looks like a nice disc. I also see alapage has CITY OF PIRATES, but it doesn't look like that one has English subs. Can anyone tell?

Michael Kerpan · #3 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:09 am

feihong wrote:Oh, my bad. Here it is on DVDbeaver

Looks like a nice disc. I also see alapage has CITY OF PIRATES, but it doesn't look like that one has English subs. Can anyone tell?

I'm pretty sure City of Pirates doesn't have subs...

sevenarts · #4 Post by **sevenarts** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 6:16 pm

I can report that the French DVD of Three Lives is indeed excellent, and has English subs. What a great movie.

The same company also released Genealogies of a Crime and Ce jour-la (another amazing film) with English subs, but I don't think their City of Pirates has subs, unfortunately.

Michael Kerpan · #5 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 6:41 pm

sevenarts wrote:Ce jour-la (another amazing film)

My favorite Ruiz so far. ;~}

sevenarts · #6 Post by **sevenarts** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 4:26 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
sevenarts wrote:Ce jour-la (another amazing film)
My favorite Ruiz so far.

I dunno, Three Crowns of the Sailor and Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting are both *really* tough competition. But Ce jour-la is up there as well -- it's such a sweet and weirdly funny film, in spite of the copious amounts of blood, a romantic comedy with a serial killer in the lead. And Elsa Zylberstein is radiant, her performance hypnotizes me every time I watch the film.

Really, though, all the Ruiz I've seen is so good that it's really a shame more of his work isn't available on DVD.

Michael Kerpan · #7 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:08 pm

Only Ce jour la features MY blood sugar meter in a key supporting role (complete with a close-up, even).

;~}

Utterly offbeat. The only other films I can think of with such a curious blend of elements all come from East Asia....

acquarello · #8 Post by **acquarello** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 5:55 pm

The City of Pirates DVD subtitles question came up before, and it definitely doesn't have any included subtitles.

It's too bad that even Ruiz's recent films don't get screened that often. I wasn't fond of Klimt, but The Lost Domain and especially Days in the Country are really very good. Days in the Country is something of an elegy, almost a melancholic return to his Chilean roots. (My favorite Ruiz film is Three Sad Tigers though.) It's interesting how somber these films are in comparison to the sprightliness of Ce jour-là, which were all made within a year of each other.

And as frustrated as I was with Love Torn in Dream when I saw it, the structure is really quite ingenious (I think there were nine permutations/stories on some four "plot" elements/objects) and is something that, despite its impenetrability, still captures that idea that somehow these two people were connected by these few objects. Ruiz explains this idea wonderfully in Poetics of Cinema 2 in the section on The Lost Domain, where two people have a sense of fatedness about their encounter that they think they will "relive" in other times and other places through other people.

Michael Kerpan · #9 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:40 pm

Lots of the films you mention, acquarello, don't seem to be available at all (e.g., The Lost Domain, Days in the Country,Three Sad Tigers)

;~{

feihong · #10 Post by **feihong** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:12 pm

How about ON TOP OF THE WHALE? It had a VHS release, but...

Barmy · #11 Post by **Barmy** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:36 pm

His best film is "The Territory", with the incomparable Paul Getty Jr. But like many of his flix, it has disappeared off the face of the Earth.

I liked the Klimt flick, BTW.

acquarello · #12 Post by **acquarello** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:48 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:Lots of the films you mention, acquarello, don't seem to be available at all (e.g., The Lost Domain, Days in the Country,Three Sad Tigers)

Film Comment Selects has been decent with showing Ruiz here and there, but nothing this year. It doesn't always go smoothly though, like the Days in the Country screening which came with an advisory that it didn't have English subs, just French, so there were only about six of us who stayed. I had good luck with a Chilean revolution themed program at National Gallery a little over a year ago though, where they screened Three Sad Tigers and his more recent one, Chilean Rhapsody.

I haven't seen The Territory...but then again, I haven't seen half of his 90+films. Sounds as though it's in a similar vein as On Top of the Whale and its ideas on colonialism and imperialism and how they are represented as the literal "eating" of cultures in Third Cinema.

Barmy · #13 Post by **Barmy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:05 pm

As it's in English, "The Territory" would seem ripe for DVD release. Maybe a two-fer with Wim Wenders' "The State of Things", which used the "Territory" cast.

kinjitsu · #14 Post by **kinjitsu** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:22 pm

feihong wrote:Can't find the Raul Ruiz on DVD post anymore.

The Raoul Ruiz on DVD thread is located here.

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