East European Cinema on DVD

[milkcan]

I'd never heard of Jiri Weiss before, and haven't looked into his biography very deeply- although, I learned he just died last year. But I'd discovered two of his films at the local Hollywood Video and have been wanting to check them out for a while now. I finally did and can come to the conclusion that Weiss is a very interesting director and that I'd like to see more of his films. Perhaps he isn't groundbreaking or very moving, but, then again, I've only seen two of his films. He's credited with the Czech New Wave, but it appears as though he'd already been making films for a while. Has anyone here seen any of his films? What did you think?

It looks like none of his films are on R1 DVD, and the VHS tapes I viewed were from Facets Video. I know these were probably produced years ago, but, damn, Facets ought to be ashamed of themselves for such muddy prints with muffled sound and bad subtitles.

Yes, Weiss's films can benefit from a restoration, but let's try and keep the whole OAR, DVD Special Features talk somewhere in the DVD Discussion section of this forum.

Romeo, Juliet and Darkness (1960): A take on the Anne Frank story. Films dealing with the Holocaust are difficult to deal with, but I think that Weiss didn't exploit it with this film. The situation the two characters end up in, however, makes me speculate about the level of oddity it would have assumed had the film been directed by the wrong person. Ultimately, the story is so personal and sweet, Weiss allows for the horrors of the Nazis to really set in and be effective when they appear. I found it a memorable film, and a good one that doesn't go over-the-top and is devoid of any hyperbole.

Murder Czech Style (1967): Weiss obviously swiped some ideas from Divorce Italian Style, but this is an almost cruel, dark comedy about a lonely, overweight and clumsy office clerk and his involvement with an attractive woman. Weiss employs a variety of tricks and techniques with this one, making the film's style the complete opposite of Romeo, Juliet and Darkness. Its very well acted, and the experimentations of Weiss's camera don't really add to or detract from the film. Like I mentioned before, its a very dark comedy, and creates a sense of discomfort with its ugly characters. Very idiosyncratic.

[vertovfan]

In the "Recommendations for Second Run" thread, zedz mentioned wanting to see Herz's The Cremator and some shorts by Borowczyk. I ordered the Czech DVD of The Cremator from diabolikdvd.com and was quite impressed - the picture quality was nice (not perfect, but very watchable), with removable English subs, and the film itself blew me away. Extraordinarily dark, with a striking, almost surreal visual style. And I recently finished watching the six Borowczyk shorts included in the Arte DVD of The Beast - Les astronautes (1959), Renaissance (1963), Lex jeux des anges (1964), Rosalie (1966), Une collection particuliere (1973), and Scherzo infernal (1985). Again, very nice transfers, the only drawback being no English subs (though they're not really needed on the first three, since they rely mostly on images and the words that do appear are given both in French and English in the film itself). Renaissance and Les jeux des anges were my favorites, again because of the striking visual style (Renaissance actually reminded me quite a bit of Svankmajer). And Une collection particuliere was interesting too, sort of a tour of Borowczyk's collection of vintage erotica - a lot of Victorian dirty pictures and strange antique X-rated toys.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass the info along in case anyone wasn't aware these were out there. Any other fans of eastern European cinema around?

[skuhn8]

Yup. Great region for cinema here. Much as the Production Code inspired clever creativity in the US, the partial thaw in the Warsaw pact nations provided very black and humorous inspiration here in the CEE.

Sadly, I'm probably still the only one on this forum who has seen Peter Bacsu's A Tanu (The Witness)--from the same fellow that penned the script of Makk's Love. Perhaps if a major label or Second Run releases it people will make an effort then. A great summing up of the Cold War situation from this region's point of view.

If you are interested I have a few Hungarian DVDs languishing in the DVD's for trade thread.

[Martha]

My two favorite films of the NY Film Festival were The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Romania) and Something Like Happiness (Czech). Lazarescu, in particular, blew my mind - I cannot ever remember seeing a new film that affected me so strongly. To me, they shared a very different attitude towards suffering than the one we seen in most western films - despite the endless horrible shit that happens in both movies, there's this weird, gritty optimism that pervades both of them.

So, do Eastern European cinemas have great, domestic films coming out of their ears, or are these just two exceptionally great? I know I'm just a close-minded American, but I never expect to see something like Lazarescu coming out of Romania, of all places.

[tavernier]

My two favorite films of the NY Film Festival were The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Romania) and Something Like Happiness (Czech). Lazarescu, in particular, blew my mind - I cannot ever remember seeing a new film that affected me so strongly. To me, they shared a very different attitude towards suffering than the one we seen in most western films - despite the endless horrible shit that happens in both movies, there's this weird, gritty optimism that pervades both of them.

So, do Eastern European cinemas have great, domestic films coming out of their ears, or are these just two exceptionally great? I know I'm just a close-minded American, but I never expect to see something like Lazarescu coming out of Romania, of all places.

Romanian director Lucien Pintilie made two of the greatest films of the 1990s - THE OAK and AN UNFORGETTABLE SUMMER - so no, LAZARESCU (which I also saw in NY) is not a fluke.
The Czech film HAPPINESS was good but less original than LAZARESCU, which was, along with CACHE, the best film at this year's mediocre NY fest.

[Steven H]

Romanian director Lucien Pintilie made two of the greatest films of the 1990s - THE OAK and AN UNFORGETTABLE SUMMER - so no, LAZARESCU (which I also saw in NY) is not a fluke.
The Czech film HAPPINESS was good but less original than LAZARESCU, which was, along with CACHE, the best film at this year's mediocre NY fest.

I enjoyed a number of films at the fest (Tale of Cinema the most), and hate that I missed Through the Forest (which I heard was fantastic). The Shochiku retrospective was impressive as well, especially the collection of early films.

Lazarescu was brilliant. One thing that struck me hard was how I recieved kind of an emotional aftershock from it, as the film's length makes it easy to, like the doctors and staff nurses of the film, almost "forget" about Mr. Lazarescu by the end. But almost immediately after leaving, it came back to me how witty, charismatic, and interesting he was at the beginning of the film, and the deterioration that occurs. Gut wrenching. I would love to see more of this director's work.

[feihong]

Ildikó Enyedi is one of my favorite filmmakers, the director of MAGIC HUNTER, MY TWENTIETH CENTURY, TAMAS AND JULI, and SIMON MAGUS (not the U.S. independent film). Just no love for these movies on the DVD front. It pisses me off. Not even in Europe are her films out.

In the U.S. we have a DVD of SIMON MAGUS by Facets, and it's one of the most horrible DVDs ever. Otherwise, it seems that all over the world it's just stuff on tape. I am very disappointed. MAGIC HUNTER is one of my favorite films of all time. Very disappointing.

[Barmy]

Magic Hunter on DVD would be great.

Hungarian directors are one of the most sadly underrepresented groups in terms of DVD releases.

[milkcan]

I enjoyed My Twentieth Century a lot. A very entertaining film with some funny moments and many memorable images. It's well shot and the lovable Dorota Segda is great. The story concerning the atmosphere of a new century filled with invention, exploration, science, and politics was strong and keeps the attention, and there were plenty of oddball scenarios to enjoy, as well. This would certainly be great to see again in a crisp new transfer!

Ildiko Enyedi looks to be starting a new original production.

[bergelson]

Hi, Can anyone tells me what is that current DVD situation on Istvan Szabo's wonderful trilogy, baring in mind that I need English translation. I know that there is a region 1 release of Mephisto by Anchor Bay which is not perfect but acceptable enough and a region 2 release which is even lesser.

As to Colonel Redl, the Anchor Bay release OAR is 4:3. Is this the correct OAR? I'm not aware of a Hannussen release, but I know that Clavis films in France has released the whole trilogy, only I'm not aware if it has English subtitles.

Any Advice? Thanks.

[tryavna]

According to IMDb, REDL was filmed with an AR of 1.78:1. At any rate, Anchor Bay's 1.33:1 framing is wrong, as the AR must have been at least 1.66:1. That disc is apparently going OOP anyway, so maybe a better one will come along.

As far as I know, there has never been an R1 release of HANUSSEN.

I've always felt that Anchor Bay's R1 release of MEPHISTO was pretty good.

[yoshimori]

Re Redl:

There's this new r2uk disc. I'll report on the aspect ratio when it arrives, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Neither sendit nor Benson's has ratio/mode info on their sites.

This review also does not consider the disc's ratio but does suggest the quality of the transfer is poor and the subs are in-grained.

Strangely, the Fremantle site doesn't even list the film in its catalogue.

fyi. The r2uk Colonel Redl is a 16x9 disc, with an aspect ratio of about 1.75:1. Looks good to me. Great movie.

[Lemmy Caution]

Just watched the in-D Dvd linked to above. The burnt in sub-titles don't really bother me (though I'd prefer optional) . But the picture quality was fairly bad. Very grainy throughout with some flickering, especially at times along the top and bottom edges of the frame along the small black borders. For stretches of up to 5 minutes at a time, the poor quality was noticeable and distracting. I also had problems with light and shadows being too extreme and bleaching out the detail on occasion. I have a pretty basic (29" TV) set-up and rarely notice quality issues, so I'd imagine this Dvd would be rather disappointing to more discerning eyes or if seen on a grander screen.

It's a shame, as the costumes and period settings seemed fairly lavish and impressive. The film itself is somewhat of a restrained version of Mephisto, transplanted to the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. An outsider advances high ... but at a high price. It's a fine psychological drama within a period piece. Brandauer is good in a nuanced performance, and I quite liked the actor who played Franz Ferdinand in a small but important role. The film seemed a little overlong to me, and yet a number of the key elements leading up to the climax seem rushed. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but the music also seemed oddly out of sync with the mood at times. Overall, it's interesting how Szabo enters into historical recreation through such a personal examination of a character.

MINOR SPOILAGE ALERT

But apparently Szabo enters into serious revisionism by portraying Redl as loyal and professional, and only perhaps in passing a traitor. In real-life, Redl apparently spied for the Russians for 10 years and lived rather lavishly off the proceeds. While Szabo instead conjures up a Redl who is conscientious, austere, and only incidentally a betrayer. Szabo seems less interested in accuracy than in portraying a society on the verge of collapse, and the psychology of a man of power about to be caught in a trap.

[Lemmy Caution]

Was wondering if anyone was familiar with the Czech film, Bozská Ema (Jirí Krejcík, 1979)? I'm asking because the Dvd turned up here (= Shanghai), but with only Czech and Chinese subtitles. From a brief glance, the title sequence looked gorgeous with some classical music over classical paintings (madonna images mostly, it seemed). A mere 24 votes at IMDb. I can't imagine this era in Czech cinema is well-represented on Dvd.

There's also a 2-disc set of Nova Generace Ceske Animace (and you thought you couldn't understand Czech) with only Japanese subs. Is anyone familiar with this set? I was wondering if it would be worth getting/relatively easy to follow without English subs.

And lastly, there's a 1973 Romanian film, Stejar, Extrema Urgenta, which has a whopping 10 votes on IMDb, and also surfaced sans English subbies. Again, any info appreciated.

[Skritek]

I haven't seen the film Bozska Ema, but it's generally lauded due to the main actress. The sets and clothing were reused for Vlacil's Koncert na konci leta. As for the director Jiri Krejcik, he is one of the most important Czech directors, however from what I've seen, he lacks a distinctive style, many consider this to be his best film, so checking it out won't hurt. Because during the release people started identifying with the woman's plight as a symbol of dissent/discontent with normalization it was taken off the silver screen.

I assume the DVD is a copy of last years Czech edition.