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Claude Chabrol's lifelong interest in the psychological lives of women finds a perfect vehicle in Gustave Flaubert's 1856 novel, MADAME BOVARY. Isabelle Hupert, Chabrol's frequent collaborator and muse, brings a detached and icy intensity to her portrayal of Emma, an ambitious farmer's daughter suffocated by her own life. When Emma meets meek country doctor Charles Bovary (Jean-Francois Balmer), she sees a ticket out of her meager existence. However, the lure of marriage and motherhood is short-lived, and soon Emma senses a new set of ever-encroaching snares and limits preventing her from fulfilling the fanciful destiny she constructs for herself out of her own desires and the romance novels that fuel them. When her outlets of novels and the odd ball at the local chateau cease to satisfy Emma's ravenous hunger for passion and luxury, she takes matters into her own hands, embarking on a double life of domesticity and adultery. Chabrol injects the film with his patented dark humor while remaining faithful to Flaubert's stinging depiction of the narrow world of 19th-century provincial life and its clash with female desires as fleshed out by the tragic figure of Huppert's immensely complicated but very real Emma.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.66Single Side - Dual LayerAudio: Mono 1.0 - FrenchAdditional Release Material: Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
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Takeshi Kitano continues alternating between introspective drama and violent films with DOLLS, which he wrote, directed, and edited in between the bloody gangster picture BROTHER (2000) and the samurai update THE BLIND SWORDSMAN: ZATOICHI. Beginning with an excerpt from Bunraku puppet theater master Monzaemon Chikamatsu's THE COURIER FOR HELL, Kitano goes on to tell the story of three sets of men and women obsessed with ill-fated relationships. Matsumoto (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is in love with Sawako (Miho Kanno), but he chooses to marry his boss's daughter instead so he can get ahead in the world. After Sawako attempts suicide and loses her mind, Matsumoto chooses to do his penance by giving up everything to take care of her, leading her through the streets and parks tied to him with a red cord so she can't get away and hurt herself. Hiro (Tatsuya Mihashi) is a yakuza boss who left his love (Chieko Matsubara) long ago in order to make something of himself; she promised she would come to the park to wait for him every Saturday, and he is shocked when he returns to the bench decades later and finds her there, with his lunch. And traffic worker Nukui (Tsutomu Takeshige) is so dedicated to young pop sensation Haruna (real-life pop sensation Kyoko Fukada) that he makes a bizarre sacrifice after she is partially blinded in an accident. With an emotional score by Joe Hisaishi, DOLLS is a deep, dark, bleak, but mesmerizing look at lost love, as seen through the eyes of one of Japan's best filmmakers.DVD Features:Region (unknown)Keep CaseFull FrameAudio: Surround Sound 5.1 EnglishAdditional Release Material: Theatrical Trailer PreviewsDVD-Rom Features: Weblinks
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This thriller follows a group of tourists vacationing in the Philippines as their trip takes a turn for the worse and they find themselves the prisoners of Communist guerillas. Forced to endure grueling torture, the tourists eventually
hatch a plan to stage a daring attack on their captors and make an attempt to escape.DVD Features:Region 0Keep CaseLetterboxedAudio: Dolby Digital 5.1 - Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 - MandarinAdditional Release Material: TrailersInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive Menus
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In MEPHISTO, an ambitious and talented actor (Klaus Maria Brandauer) on the verge of success marries the daughter of an important official in pre-World War II Germany in order to further his career. As the Nazi influence grows, he discards his wife and uses his new connections to become the head of the National Theatre, while tailoring his art to the fascistic beliefs of his patrons.Wonderful acting in all roles and a strong, balanced script gives a chilling feel for why millions of people in Germany--not just ambitious, monomaniacal actors--succumbed to the outlandish theatrical appeal of Nazism by showing the more subtle, underlying psychological appeal of fascism itself. Based on a novel by Klaus Mann, the son of Thomas Mann, MEPHISTO, like Visconti's THE DAMNED, which showed the culpability of industrialists in their support of Hitler, dramatically shows the self-deceptive and ultimately evil acts of an artist making his own Faustian bargain.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.77:1Audio: Mono - German Subtitles - English - OptionalAdditional Release Material: Interview - 1. Istvan Szabo - Director







2. Klaus Maria Brandauer - StarInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive MenusText/Photo Galleries: Talent Bios
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In 1943, as World War II's Battle of Berlin rages, with air raids forcing families into their cellars for shelter and bombs exploding all over the city, Felice Schragenheim (Juliane Kohler) and Lilly Wust (Maria Schrader), fall in love. Director Max Farberbock's AIMEE& JAGUAR tells the true story of this passionate, forbidden love affair, adapted from the 1998 book of the same title by Erica Fischer.Felice, a dark and beautiful Jewish woman who is constantly in danger of being apprehended by the Gestapo, works for a Nazi newspaper under a false name, feeding what she learns to underground resistance leaders. Lilly, a flowery blond housewife living in bourgeoise comfort, raises 4 little boys, passing the time until her Nazi husband, Gunther, returns from the war. When the two meet, and Felice makes advances, Lilly responds, falling into total submission under Felice's spell. They nickname each other Aimee (Lilly) and Jaguar (Felice), spending every night dancing to popular 40s jazz music with Felice's eccentric lesbian friends, and every day raising the four boys who treat Felice like a second mother. It is not until the end of their affair, when Lilly--and soon thereafter, the authorities--learns that Felice is a Jew, and tragedy befalls the couple.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseLetterboxed - 1.77:1Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 - German Subtitles - English - OptionalAdditional Release Material: Production Interview - 1. Cast& Crew Documentary TrailersInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive Menus
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
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