Director: Helene Angel
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Nicolas Nollet, Sergi Lopez
Year: 2003

This is a movie of many titles. The DVD has it entitled Dragon Knight. The original French title is Recontre avec le dragon. And IMDB has it labeled as The Red Knight. Whatever you choose to call it, the multiple names are a sign of the confusion to come. There is not a single dragon in the movie, nor can we ever be sure that a dragon played any part in the story. That’s fine, there doesn’t have to be an actual dragon; you could argue that the legend of the dragon is what’s important to the plot. But then there’s the French vs. the English title. Sure, it’s a foreign film, why not. But again, it’s a clue as to what’s to come. And what came was some of the worst dubbing I have ever sat through. So take the uncertainty of the title as a sign and be prepared for what turned out to be a very odd film.

The Movie

Legend has it that a man baptised by fire has become one of the greatest knights in history. His name is Guillaume, and in his youth he saved his friend Raoul from the dragon’s breath. In the process, he was horribly burned, surviving but paying a horrible price. The scars he will carry for a lifetime, but legend also claims that this brave warrior can never die, can never be defeated, that he is blessed by the fire. Years after the event his exploits have not been forgotten. Books have been written about him, and he has become a famous knight, idolized by many. One such believer is Felix, a young boy who carries an ancient book with him as if it were the Bible, hoping to one day meet & squire for his beloved hero.

When Felix finally meets Guillaume, all is not as he imagined it would be. The Red Dragon is no more than a bounty hunter, attempting to find the renegade Hugues, return him to the Pope, and collect a handsome reward. Also on the trail of the runaway is Mespoulede, Guillaume’s rival. The two fight for the right to the prize, with Felix a near helpless tag-a-long. But there is even more to the story that will make it even harder for Guillaume to complete his mission. He is being followed by his now mad friend Raoul, who is cursed and damned and totally insane. Something happened years ago between the two near brothers that has driven a wedge between them, something that haunts them still and will ultimately help to decide the fate of all involved.

First, the dubbing. I’m not sure who did it, but it sounds like it was perhaps a high school class. I’ve heard some bad voice-overs in some bad b-movies, but this has to be right up there with the worst ever. Not only was it horrible acting, but the voices themselves didn’t seem to fit the characters at all. Guillaume sounded like he was seventeen. I could have done a better job, and I really hate when that happens. Me and my friends shouldn’t be able to go in the basement, watch the movie, find a script, read along, and do ten times better than the actual dubbers. I mean, come on, put some effort into it at least. Try to emote a little and inflect your voice. I don’t want to sound like my old choir teacher, but a little enunciation wouldn’t hurt.

The only thing the dubbing allowed for were some cool sound effects that seem to have been added in to the movie. Background sounds were louder than usual, but not in a bad way. It was almost like an old radio show where someone is producing sound effects to go along with the dialogue. Who knows, that may have been exactly what they were doing, snapping twigs whenever a character went traipsing through the woods. But it worked, and created a extra sense of reality, of being involved in the story. And the story itself wasn’t bad. I was interested in the Dragon Knight legend, I was curious to see how it would all play out, and I liked Felix as the boy who is witnessing the crazy world that these messed up adults have constructed for themselves.

Putting aside the dubbing, the film was alright. Not great, but alright. It was very imaginative, with strange locations that the characters were always coming across, original costumes, and some nice ideas put into motion. There was obviously a lot of time & effort put into the world in which the action was taking place. The events of the plot were unpredictable, even a little wild at times. But at least they kept you on your toes. The level of violence and stark action was nice; there was a very raw sense to the film, a semi-realistic take on medieval warfare, politics, and brutality. I guess if I had just turned the volume off it would have made for a better movie. But then I wouldn’t have known what the hell was going on, so never mind.

The DVD

Video: With an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the picture quality is nice. Maybe not quite as perfect as you’d hope for, but nice. The scenery was what impressed me. The filmmakers had a good eye for the set, and gave us some really great shots.

Audio: You have two sound options here: 2.0 Dolby Stereo or 5.1 Surround Sound. The film is in French with English dubbing. There are no subtitles options, but if you had subtitles you’d miss some of the worse voice-overs you’re ever likely to hear.

Extras: There are zero extras on this disc.

Final Thoughts

Skip It. I wish I had watched this film in its original language. I don’t think it would have made it amazing, but it definitely would have helped. The visuals of the movie were nice, the story was cool, but the dubbing was just so bad it made it almost unwatchable. The video was good, the audio was fine, and there were no extras at all. Find a French version; otherwise don’t bother.

Olie Coen
111 Archer Avenue
111aa.blogspot.com

THE FILM 

The description on the back cover of this vital DVD containing British artist Ben Rivers’s mind-blowing, near-spiritual experience of a feature film, Two Years at Sea, makes it sound as if there’s a story being told: It names the film’s subject, a man called Jake Williams, and informs us of the origin of its title, that Williams spent two years working at sea (on a fishing boat, presumably) to finance the isolated, cabin-in-the-woods wilderness existence he’s always dreamed of. But, interesting as it is, none of that information is mentioned at all in the film, nor is it in any way necessary to understanding it. Rivers’s aims are not by any stretch documentarian in that way; he has little interest in introducing this man to us as a biographical “character” or explaining to us how he came to swell and survive with such unusual independence in such a wide-open, unspoiled, mysterious landscape. His mission is higher, more poetic; he means not to merely describe the eccentric Williams and the strange, almost perversely simple way of living he’s striven for and evidently attained, but to find and use the right cinematic vocabulary and syntax to convey some of the essence of the very modest, sublimely peaceful character this self-exemption from the “civilized” world can grant to a life, the different, perhaps more natural (or at least more humane) tempos and textures for which it allows.

What that means for the privileged viewer is that not only is this bearded, reclusive, vaguely hippie-like man never actually named in the film, but we never even hear him speak; Rivers, his camera, and his sound recording device have embedded themselves in his life for a stretch so that we may observe, quasi-reverentially, his mundane rituals (the morning routine of toilet and shower; the elaborate and laborious but savored making of food and drink), his work (wood-chopping to music played on what appears to be a child’s ancient, discarded portable record player; the hoisting, with his antiquated all-terrain vehicle, of his trailer-home to higher ground in preparation for winter), and his well-deserved, enviably plentiful leisure (reading, writing, still and meditative repose; the fashioning and hauling of a sort of raft of his own design in which, in an achingly languorous, extended scene, he lets himself simply float in a vast, hidden lake nearby). The details are bountiful, fascinatingly rendered: From the widest, most terrible (in the old-fashioned, Schopenhauerian sense) views of the mysterious natural world surrounding Williams — the forests, the meadows, the thick, gently all-enfolding early-morning fog, the swirling clouds and rain or the piercing clearness from the huge sky above — are set in an unlikely but complementary rhythm with the tiniest cut-in close-ups — that record player; the plants in the windows, alternately fogged or reflective and rain-spattered; the mist created by the hot shower water against the cold surfaces of his domicile; his washing on the line; dozens of mysterious found objects he’s deigned/made useful to him — Rivers shapes an endlessly patient, incredibly intuitive, hyper-observant picture that fully accommodates the elusive contours, the becalmed heartbeat and the infinite, serene variety and aliveness to the world that this dreamed-of life made real provides for.

It’s not, of course, only in what Rivers’s brave, flawless intuition leads him to show us, but the how, and his aptitude for locating and enacting the right style and technique is stunning, perfect in its imaginativeness and conscientious application. He uses grainy, old-fashioned, possibly intentionally weathered or otherwise re-shaped 16 mm black-and-white stock, incongruously but rapturously blown up into ‘Scope-ratio widescreen for a visual texture, a particular thickly sensuous, flickering physicality you can practically touch, that, far from being ornate or imposed, or distancing us from the solidity of the world onscreen, immeasurably enhances our sense of its reality, its immediacy for us; the “rough” by design, sometimes spotted, lined, or weatherbeaten-looking image, accompanied by a pristine soundtrack, dialogue-free and almost entirely devoid of non-diegetic sound but replete with Williams’s whistling as he works, his scratchy and primitively-played records and tapes revealing an anti-contemporary, obstinately roots-seeking, R. Crumb-like esotericism to his musical tastes, and all the hundreds of sounds of nature animal, vegetable, and mineral, makes for a vivid, unshakeable intimacy, as if we’re seeing not a picture of a place made by familiar technological means but a timeless, private projection of a subjectivity somehow rendered as demonstrably true and real as anything, of how this world feels, what it means, the totality of its look and feel and sound, to the one who has miraculously willed himself into it. It’s what we might see in home movies brought back by some dream-anthropologist from a voyage into the subconscious, Walden-conjuring mind of H.D. Thoreau himself.

The perspective Rivers thereby imbues through his wonderful film is so strong that any trace of what might normally be the main focuses in a more conventional documentary — the stray, neglected newspapers that might concretize time and place; the many photographs, all unidentified, of what must be people and places, perhaps images of a younger, other self, from Williams’s life before — is startling, like a relic from some alien unreality, necessary to remember but also necessarily dim, distant, amorphous. This world, not idealized or romanticized but genuinely explored for every indelible impression, every inexpressible feeling it gives, is made to immerse us so fully, pulling us with its solid, relentless, alluring gravity, that we easily understand, without any verbalized justifications or psychologizing backstory, what would make this man forsake ours for it. There’s nothing of what’s commonly used for suspense or attention-holding on hand here, but you don’t quite want the experience to end; it’s not that you need to know what happens next, but that you don’t want to leave. In the last shot, when Williams’s lantern finally, oh so slowly lets his peaceful face fade into the darkness over which the end credits appear, it’s jarring to return to the “real” world that, in the glorious light of this film, somehow feels contrivedly cluttered, falsely “busy,” not so verifiably real. It’s the perfect note to end on, though, cementing our extraordinarily close, complete relationship to this man’s and his interlocutor’s visions: Upon our return, we feel as displaced, as regretful as he would if he had to come back to our world and leave behind his humble, authentic, profoundly beautiful, and entirely possible paradise-now.

 

THE DVD
Video:

As one has come to expect from Cinema Guild, the transfer of the film is punctilious and splendid: The very particular, very textured and physical character of Rivers’s 16 mm black-and-white is vital to the experience, and it’s all been preserved wonderfully in this transfer (presenting the film anamorphically at its original widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1), all of its glows and fades and varied contrasts and, yes, its natural and essential grain (it’s unimaginable that anyone would DNR or otherwise smooth the character out of Rivers’s images, and thank goodness not a step has been made in that direction here) fully present and accounted for. Darks (of which there are many) are as solid as intended, and virtually no compression artifacts such as aliasing or edge enhancement/haloing can be seen throughout. A very nice job, picture quality-wise.

Sound:

The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is perfectly sufficient to the meticulous sound design with which Rivers has imbued his work: The film is entirely dialogue-free, and virtually devoid of any non-diegetic sound, but what we hear — the sound of rain falling or of snow melting and trickling, the striking of an axe as it splits apart logs, the intimate percolations of a coffee pot — is essential, and each sound, which Rivers attentively treats as uniquely precious and meaningful, is rich, full, clear, and solidly present, all qualities that come to us fully intact in the soundtrack as it’s been carefully treated and conveyed to us here, with no distortion, imbalance, or any discernible flaws whatsoever.

Extras:

Two short films by Ben Rivers: This is My Land (2006, 14 min.), which also takes Williams as its subject and is very much a precursor to/trial run for Two Years at Sea; it’s exquisite in many of the same ways, but Rivers discovered along the way that dropping Williams’s descriptive, Scots-accented speech and widening out the frame (this film appears in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio) for the feature would lend it even more real, rough-hewn grandiloquence (included in the menu is a helpful prologue in which Rivers describes the overlap between his methods, approach, and philosophy and those of Williams, which has led to the wondrous and magnificent conjunctions of form and content we see in these films). I Know Where I’m Going (2009, 29 min.) borrows its title from a wonderful old Powell/Pressburger film but has quite a different meaning; it’s another landscape journey, but different from the other two included here. With narration about projected human traces in a post-human Earth many millennia from now by geologist Jan Zalasiewicz and a Kubrickian-vertiginous, almost too-spacious sense of sound and vision, along with Rivers’s deployment of color from his rich-as-always16 mm palette, this time his capability for cinematic creation makes for an anomalously reassuring, premonitory slice of post-apocalypse that may be the most haunting of all the indispensable achievements compiled on this disc.

–About 30 minutes of deleted scenes that were presumably omitted to avoid repetition (each of the textures and moments seen herein has a one-time-only analogue in the film proper), but left as we are with a hunger for more of Rivers’s extraordinary vision, this makes for a most generous and welcome addendum to the main course.

–A graphically very pleasing, four-page/fold-in insert booklet whose beauty is matched by its content, a brief tribute/essay on the film by critic Dennis Lim.

–A selection of trailers for other Cinema Guild releases, all of which, from The Day He Arrives to Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, are unhesitantly recommended as well.

 

 

FINAL THOUGHTSEvery filmmaker worth his or her salt has a vision, but that of Two Years at Sea director Ben Rivers gives us “vision” more literally than most: Ostensibly a documentary about real-life subject Jake Williams, an Englishman who’s chosen a bare-bones, DIY, extremely rural life as a sort of recluse from so-called civilization, the film, shot in gorgeously tactile 16 mm black-and-white, seems to let us into an existence at once absolutely real and almost completely outside of time. Its wordlessness and mystery create an enrapturing sense of living, momentarily experiencing for ourselves this man’s quixotic dream — his personal, Walden-like vision — of leading a calm, quiet, uncomplicated, “natural” life. Like the also technically “documentary” landscape films of James Benning, Rivers is not representing reality so much as he is capturing sublime essences, refocusing our attention on an elusive but transformative Truth — life, nature, and time in the way only serious and sensitive art can do. Two Years at Sea may depict a real man’s real, inspired, inspiring life, but that’s only for starters, not even the half of it: Its aim is not to inform but to transport us, and that it does, most elegantly and hypnotically, delivering us, at least for its too-brief, over-in-a-flash 90 minutes, into a rare, contemplative state of grace. Highly Recommended.

Take that, Mrs. Cleaver! Sony Pictures’ fun Choice Collection line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Harriet Craig, the 1950 domestic drama from Columbia, directed by clean, efficient pro Vincent Sherman, and starring grimly resolute Joan Crawford, Wendell Corey, Lucile Watson, Allyn Joslyn, William Bishop, Ellen Corby, and K.T. Stevens. The third movie version of George Kelly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Craig’s Wife, Harriet Craig is a taut exercise in sublimated hysteria, as obsessive/neurotic matriarch Crawford tries to bring fanatical order to her plush, suburban home…and over her husband’s every single move. An entertaining “woman’s picture’ featuring one of Crawford’s best performances. No extras for this solid black and white fullscreen transfer.

Easy-going, henpecked electronics engineer Walter Craig (Wendell Corey) is in big trouble. His ball-busting harridan of a wife, Harriet Craig (Joan Crawford), has a medical emergency with her institutionalized mother (Virginia Brissac), and Harriet, late catching the train, needs to know where Walter is right now. Her servants, nervous, hapless Lottie (Ellen Corby), and wry, observant pro Mrs. Harold (Viola Roache) are complete incompetents in Harriet’s eyes, and therefore richly deserving of her withering scorn and displeasure, subtle or otherwise. Harriet’s homeless, harried cousin, Clare Raymond (K.T. Stevens), acting as an unpaid secretary to Harriet, isn’t considered to be much better. When Walter does show up, he grovels for Harriet’s forgiveness (which he doesn’t get) and listens as Harriet lays down the law to the servants: Mr. Craig is not to go out to eat while she’s gone for two weeks, and the house is to remain, as always, immaculate. Harriet’s mother, a virtual catatonic, isn’t interested in Harriet’s gift of an expensive brooch, nor is she expected to recover anytime soon, according to Dr. Lambert (Katherine Warren), since Harriet’s mother has retreated to an “inner world” that may take years to understand. Harriet, threatened by the doctor’s questions about her own marriage, isn’t buying into any complicated, vague diagnosis: her good-for-nothing father is the cause of her mother’s illness, end of story, having skipped out on the starving family when Harriet was only 14-years-old. When Harriet can’t reach anyone at the house, she cuts her trip short and discovers to her horror that her beautiful, flawless home has been trashed–a couple of full ashtrays and some glasses and newspapers on the tables–during a party Walter threw for his old friends, with the servants given the weekend off. This monstrous display of rebellion against her iron-clad rules detailing exactly how the house should be kept and how her husband should behave at all times, sets into motion a series of increasingly tense confrontations between Harriet and everyone else in the house, as she stoops to ever-more cruel manipulations and lies in a desperately sick effort to maintain control over everyone and everything in her life.

 In Vincent Sherman’s ripe autobiography, Studio Affairs (I highly recommend it for all the fun dirt it dishes), the director made a point of linking his then-lover Joan Crawford’s off-screen personality and behavior with the fictional “Harriet Craig.” Indeed, since Crawford’s legacy is now (fairly or unfairly) inextricably tied-in with the literary and subsequent cinematic portrait drawn from her adopted daughter Christina’s excoriating tell-all, Mommie Dearest, it’s difficult not to watch Harriet Craig and look upon the character’s actions as almost a backwards incarnation of our own perceptions today of who and what Joan Crawford was off-screen–a weird, self-reflexive exercise that only makes Harriet Craig all that much more enjoyable. It’s impossible not to see Crawford here, butched-up with her slicked-back hair, mannish tailored suits, and kabuki-like beautiful/hard-as-nails face–snapping over her Ming vase being off-center one inch on the mantelpiece–and not immediately call up images of Faye Dunaway yowling and clawing at the turf. You can watch Harriet Craig on that camp level (hate that term…) alone, and certainly enjoy it well enough; however, it plays even better if you can try and temporarily ditch those too-close-for-comfort “real/reel” associations between Crawford and Craig, and concentrate on Crawford’s rather frightening portrayal of a screwed-down-tight neurotic in this Freudian satire of 1950s matriarchal America.

 I’ve never read George Kelly’s 1925 play, Craig’s Wife, nor do I remember seeing the 1936 movie version of it starring Rosalind Russell (there was also a 1928 silent version starring Irene Rich). According to a few sources I’ve read, Kelly’s plays were noted for their moralistic attacks on his leading characters, characters who lacked ethical integrity and virtuous rectitude. This movie version of Craig’s Wife certainly doesn’t spare the lead character her comeuppance, but it is notable that screenwriters Anne Froelick (The Master Race, Easy Come, Easy Go) and James Gunn (Affair in Trinidad, The Young Philadelphians and TV’s 77 Sunset Strip), with an assist by director Sherman, take pains to emphasize Harriet’s reprehensible actions occur as a result of a psychological disorder, rather than Kelly’s more generalized “lack of character,” a thematic underpinning which was entirely in keeping with Hollywood’s obsession with Freudian psychology. When Harriet visits her zoned-out mother in that plush sanitarium and offers her an expensive (and completely useless) bauble, and her mother, pulling out her sewing bag, says she has “too much mending” to do, you pretty much get an inkling as to where they’re going with this angle. When Harriet speaks to the doctor and bristles when asked if she is happy in her marriage, Harriet’s formal, stiff response that equals, “Everything’s fine here–move along,” gets a knowing, blank reaction from the doctor (leaving the sanitarium, Harriet’s stated dislike of trains hurtling her uncontrollably into the darkness pretty much seals the deal for us as far as what’s going on with Harriet).

 As the movie progresses, Harriet goes from bitch harpy to truly amoral destroyer, but her father’s betrayal at an early age at least gives the audience an explanation–not an excuse–for the behavior pattern she relentlessly employs. At the finale, we’re given the chance to feel, if not “forgiveness,” then “pity” for Harriet’s terrible acts of betrayal when Crawford, quite brilliantly, somehow elicits from us sympathy for a truly unsympathetic creature in so much obvious psychological anguish. SPOILERS ALERT! After Harriet has driven away both Clare and Walter with her lies and manipulations, she is alone in her house, suffering the realization of what her actions have wrought. Just when we’re prepared to say, “Well, at least she understands the severity of what she’s done,” and thereby allowing us to give her just the tiniest of sympathetic leeway (while satisfying our judgmental scrutiny), kindly next-door-neighbor and widow, Mrs. Frazier (Fiona O’Shiel) rings the doorbell. Aware of Harriet’s fight with Walter, she sincerely offers the simplest of creature comforts to a fellow human being in distress: company. Harriet, suspicious and jealous of Mrs. Frazier, as usual, and offended at her familiarity, immediately fortifies her wall, lies about the situation with Walter, and shuts the door in Mrs. Frazier’s face. Harriet is utterly alone in the large, empty house. She is damaged beyond repair, and no amount of sympathy from anyone–including us–no matter the so-called “excusable” psychological catalyst that took root in her, is going to change her thoroughly despicable behavior (if Harriet Craig was remade today, everyone but her would be to blame for her actions, no doubt…).

Harriet Craig‘s haunted house atmosphere of psychological horror (just check out master cinematographer Joseph Walker’s dramatically ghoulish lighting on Crawford) is frequently leavened by its satirical assault on the encroaching matriarchal tyranny of the 1950s American household–a “lightened” mood that is amusing in a thoroughly depressing fashion, when you consider how far the other way we’ve gone in feminizing the American male in the subsequent 60-odd years. Vying, in American suburban popular culture, with the myth of “a man’s home is his castle,” was the phenomenon of “wife/mother knows best,” where the super-efficient, preternaturally-wise wife and mother ruled over her unruly brood and drooling simpleton of a husband with a velvet-gloved iron fist (one of Mad Magazine‘s favorite subjects for ridicule in their 50s parodies, along with countless other serious authors, commentators and moviemakers at that time). Crawford’s “wife/mother knows best” of Harriet Craig isn’t so much a perversion of that myth ideal, but rather a natural progression of it to the nth degree: an uber-materfamilias who’s suffocating in her complete, loveless control of her home and husband.

 Instead of one of those loving partnerships found on so many 50s sitcoms like The Donna Reed Show, Leave it to Beaver, or Father Knows Best, Harriet’s marriage is a cold, business “arrangement,” in her words, where men are to be rigorously “trained” without their knowledge, until they’ve been neutered of all unwanted independence (sound ridiculously over the top Check out any episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, one of the most successful–and nauseating, if you’re male–sitcoms of the last twenty years, and see a grotesque picture of modern husbandry in American pop culture not too dissimilar from Harriet Craig, where Ray Romano literally cowers in fear of his shrewish, controlling wife and mother…to huge studio-sweetened laughs). Unlike those sitcom mothers who had their hands full with rambunctious little rug rats messing up their houses and diverting attention away from taking care of hubby, Harriet has perfected a ruthless, unethical solution: lie to her husband, telling him her doctor said she can’t have children. The result: no kids, no mess, and her husband all to herself. Taking the teasing sexuality of those ultra-clean sitcoms to the last level, Harriet openly uses the promise of her sex act to control her husband…but she clearly doesn’t want it for its own sake, when he suggests it (Wendell Corey’s slightly dopey, emasculated, Dagwood Bumstead-ish husband plays perfectly against Crawford’s masculine steel…until his eyes go cold and dead at the end, when he reasserts his long-lost “don’t-give-a-sh*t-about-your-perfect-house” manhood against Crawford’s increasing feminine hysteria and instability).

 

Harriet’s even graduated up from a housewife’s daily drudgery–she gets the maids and her secretary/cousin to do all for her (it’s hilarious to hear Harriet always moan about what a rough time she’s having running her life). And her level of expected perfectionism for those servants is to the millimeter: blinds are to be closed no later than 11:30am, Ming vase is be at least two inches from the edge of the mantelpiece, and husband’s whereabouts are to be accounted for to the second. You can take this last element as a criticism of materialism run amok, as many do when discussing Harriet Craig, but that’s only because it’s an easier, politically correct so-called “sin” to condemn. Writers comment on Harriet’s attachment to her house as if the luxury is the final goal to her, but it isn’t: she clearly isn’t “happy” when she’s left with it, and nothing more. Rather, it’s all about control: control over the house, over the servants, over her husband, over the daily rituals of life, so she won’t ever feel out of control, or at the mercy of willy-nilly fate. Her willingness to lie about anything to maintain her facade of control is what eventually catches her up, when all her stories are finally compared. However, the rot was already there; she was doomed to fail in her domination no matter how initially successful. The 50s “wife/mother knows best” myth is transformed into a totalitarian sick joke in Harriet Craig…a transformed myth that you can still see in today’s American pop culture.

The DVD:

The Video:
The fullscreen, 1.37:1 black and white transfer for Harriet Craig looks just a tad dark and grainy; however, overall it’s a sharp image with decent contrast and only minor imperfections.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track is serviceable, with moderate hiss and no subtitles or closed-captions.

The Extras:
No extras for Harriet Craig.

Final Thoughts:
A cold, calculated bit of domestic hysteria. Apparently, Joan Crawford was born to play Harriet Craig, and she turns in one of her best performances here as a calculating ball-buster who will stoop to anything to keep a tight lid on her husband and home. On the surface, an entertaining, overripe, superior “woman’s picture.” Below…creepy. I’m highly, highly recommending Harriet Craig.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published movie and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

 

“When there is no room in hell, the dead go to detention!” I’ve been a fan of the original Night of the Living Dead for a long time and also love the 1970s follow-up Dawn of the Dead (a must-see just for the 70s shopping mall) but with the recent resurgence of zombie movies, I sort of feel like the genre has been done to death at this point, no pun intended.

Still, Detention of the Dead, which began as a stage play, figures there’s room for a comedic take on the whole zombie apocalypse thing. Here we have a group of six high school students who are sentenced to detention after school: nerdy and often picked-on Eddie (Jacob Zachar) who is in for taking unprescribed pills to help him do better in school, his goth-chick friend Willow (Alexa Nikolas), popular cheerleader Janet (Christa B. Allen), her jock boyfriend Brad (Jayson Blair), stoner Ash (Justin Chon), and one more jock for good measure, Jimmy (Max Adler). Yes, that includes Brad and Janet as in Rocky Horror, and Ash as in The Evil Dead. It’s just a normal day when they check in for detention, but a seventh detainee Mark (Joseph Porter) isn’t feeling quite right after being bitten by someone outside and suddenly goes rabid, biting Mrs. Rumblethorp (Michele Messmer), the teacher in charge of watching them. The other students fight him off and soon realize that everyone outside the classroom has become run-of-the-mill zombies, as we’ve seen in countless other movies. The rules for them are the same as usual: they wander aimlessly in search of humans to eat, and any unaffected person they bite becomes a zombie themselves.

Our heroes bring the teacher into the library (officially called the Savini Library, get it) which is a safer place and where much of the movie is spent. Unfortunately Mrs. Rumblethorp starts to “turn”, so they have no choice but to cut her head off but at least her head is kept alive on a shelf, snarling for additional comic relief. From then on, they try to figure out what’s going on and plan their escape from the school, bonding a bit in the process a la The Breakfast Club.

On first viewing I didn’t think too highly of Detention of the Dead, but appreciated it a bit more after watching it a second time with the director’s commentary track, which I’ll discuss later. It was disappointing mainly because there were no real “laugh out loud” moments, but did have some more subtle humor that made it worthwhile. Willow gets some of the best lines and starts setting up the zombie thing before it happens, bringing in a PSP showing Night of the Living Dead and telling Eddie “If I ever get to meet George Romero, I’m gonna seduce him and bear him little zombie babies, but then they’d probably eat us which would be kinda sad because that’d mean no more Living Dead movies, but it would be a great metaphor for what kids end up doing to their parents when they turn into teenagers.” Later in the film she compares normal high school students to zombies in the way they desperately try to fit into cliques and try not to show any individuality, which is as good a message as Dawn of the Dead‘s hinting at consumer culture turning people into zombies. It’s also quite satisfying seeing the nerd character Eddie take charge during the crisis and earn the respect of the jocks who normally tormented him. Cheerleader Janet gets a few laughs for her stereotypical bimbo behavior, including being upset at blood getting on her cheerleading outfit because it’s hard to clean, and later looking at herself in the mirror telling herself she’s too pretty to die.

Picture:

Shot in 4k digital and presented in a 2.35 ratio, Detention of the Dead looks about as good as it can on standard DVD (there does not appear to be a Blu-Ray release available), with some aliasing being the most prominent limitation of the format here. Details (such as the titles of books in the library) still seemed clearer than on other standard DVDs I’ve watched recently, and I did not see any obvious compression artifacts.

Sound:

Audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1, with restrained but sometimes effectively used surrounds. There are a few good LFE effects as the zombies attack, and dialogue is very clear.

English SDH subtitles as well as Spanish subs are included.

Extras:

A feature-length commentary with Executive Producer / Writer / Director Alex Craig Mann is included, which does much to strengthen one’s appreciation of Detention of the Dead. He emphasizes that he was going for several “homages”, including George Romero’s Dead series and most of John Hughes’ work especially The Breakfast Club. He also talks about how shooting in Michigan, despite the cast and crew being based in California, saved an infinite amount of money, and that he wanted the movie to “embrace, not hide” its low budget. He even points out a flaw that even I didn’t notice at first (and I’m the type of person who looks for these things), that of the sound man being visible onscreen for a second- I’ve heard commentaries for other movies where things like that happen and aren’t even acknowledged, so Mann gets my respect for this.

There is also a rather lengthy 40-minute making-of piece on the disc, with a lot of production footage and reflections from the cast and crew. This was interesting but didn’t really increase my appreciation of the movie as much as the commentary did.

Final Thoughts:

Detention of the Dead could have been a lot funnier than it is and doesn’t score many points for originality, but it still gets enough right for me to recommend it. Those who go in not expecting an all-out laugh-fest should end up having a good time.

Shun Li and the Poet DVD Review

Shun Li and the Poet is a  more thoughtful and refreshing romantic film: it’s a quietly paced and eloquently told effort. The story focuses on Shun Li (Tao Zhao), who worked in a textile factory at the film’s beginning strides, but who moves from China to Italy with the help of a broker who managed to get her to come into Italy. She is now in debt, however,  and must find some way to repay the broker and also raise enough income to bring her son, who is living in China, to meet her in Italy and stay with her in what would be their new homeland.

As Shun Li begins working to pay back the debt she spends most of her time working in a bar where Italians would come and drink, gossip, and hang out with one another for a while. The fishermen of local areas would come to this bar and it was a place for friendship for so many, offering a solace from their workplace on the sea. Shun Li meets an older fisherman who is considered a poet, a nickname he holds, by the name of Bepi (Rade Serbedzija). He begins talking to her and it isn’t long before the pair begin a close friendship with each other that continues to grow with each passing day.

Fellow fishermen begin to gossip about the two of them, and the time they’ve spent together. Before long, the broker insists to Shun Li that she can no longer see her friend Bepi; not if eventually reuniting with her son is something she wants. The friendship (and the growing romance) between Bepi and Shun Li is placed in a standstill. Can the two remain close if everyone else around them seems to want to see them apart Cultural conflict and lack of understanding from those around them causes a pause. This is one of the major elements unfolded, and it unravels with an almost lyrically beautiful sense of filmmaking majesty.

Andre Segre has made an unquestionably beautiful film with this production. With the aid of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, the film has some sweepingly lush photography of the water surrounding the small town around the Venetian Lagoon. It’s a mesmerizing location for the filmmaking to unfold within.

The deliberately slow-build pacing is a strength aiding the effort by making it feel as quiet and intimate as good poetry can often be. And as these characters are explored with performances from actors Tao Zhao (Shun Li) and Rade Serbedzija (“the poet” Bepi), the film becomes an excellent example of how filmmaking can ultimately remind one of the beauty in poetry as a storytelling method as both of the fine performances delivered by these actors aids greatly to enhancing the film’s essentially fundamental mood, flow, and inherent qualities: the film is successfully told with an elegance that makes it one of the best independent efforts today.

The film even managed to win some awards (in addition to some of its accolades critically).  Perhaps most tellingly was the Best Actress Award win, which was received by Tao Zhao, during the Italian Academy Awards. The film was also the winner of a  ‘Best First Feature’, delivered from the London BFI Film Festival. This film is exquisite: a marvelous debut showcasing a rising talent from director Andre Segre. It’s a gem of a film with quiet and charming intentions as the story unfolds in exploring cross-cultural connections and the circumstances surrounding the growing issue of migration.

The fact that Shun Li and the Poet handles such interesting, important, and notable themes while also being a romantic, heartfelt, and so determinedly beautiful effort, as lush at times as a fine-art painting can be, makes it a wonderful success, through and through.

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The DVD:

Video:

Shun Li and the Poet is presented on by Film Movement with a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer which preserves the original theatrical exhibition ratio. The DVD PQ is superb from a technical standpoint as it delivers crisp imagery with the clean photography. The colors are so beautifully rendered and richly exquisite. This is a gorgeous looking film and the DVD does a solid job presenting it in a notably impressive way.  

Audio:

The 2.0 and 5.1 surround sound audio tracks do a good job of presenting the minimalistic audio design, which only occasionally sounds expansive for music and slight ambiance. The dialogue remains the main focus of the film and it is sparingly utilized at times as well. But when it does become utilized the audio is crisp, clear, and easy enough to understand. The surround option is going to be more enveloping, but both options present a decent sound presentation.

Extras:

The main supplement on this release is the monthly short film selected by Film Movement to accompany the main feature release. The piece for the month is entitled Shanghai Love Market and it is from director Craig Rosenthal. This selection is actually a bit of a satire-style comedic short about a mother determined to find her son a wife from a famous “People’s” park-place, one where people offer interviews and information for the single people of the area looking for a potential mate. It’s actually a goofy and somewhat oddly created short, which might sound unsurprising given the concept, but it does have some interesting moments that are well-directed overall.

The release also includes brief biographies for the actors and director, and trailers for other Film Movement releases.

Final Thoughts:

Shun Li and the Poet is in many ways a truly poetic film. The pace, the atmosphere, and the quiet but profound characterizations make it a perfect fit for presenting this type of storytelling to an audience. The effort is well appreciated and it is worth seeking out for the beautiful directing, cinematography, and excellent performances from leads Tao Zhao and Rade Serbedzija.

Highly Recommended.

Neil Lumbard is a lifelong fan of cinema, and a student who aspires to make movies. He loves writing, and currently does in Texas.