Jacques
Rivette Collection (1971 - 1981) + Kiju Yoshida: Love +
Anarchism (1969 - 1973/MVD Visual/Arrow Blu-ray w/DVD Sets)
Picture:
B+ & B/B+ & B- Sound: B+ & B/B+ & B- Extras:
B+/B Film: B/B/B-/B/B
The
Jacques Rivette Collection
Multiple
films from French Director Jacques Rivette are now available in this
new The
Jacques Rivette Collection
box set from Arrow Films, that is defiantly a great watch for film
students and those who like foreign cinema. Never before available
in this way, the films are low budget but still pretty captivating.
Starting
off the set is Out
1
(1979) and it has been hailed as Rivette's masterwork by film critics
and audiences alike. Epic in length and character study, it was
recut into shorter film and retitled Out
1: Spectre,
and is a drastic cut down from its initial television mini series
length, that was nearly fourteen hours long!
The
set also includes what are described as two 'parallel films', Duelle
(une quarantaine) and Noroit
(une vengeance). Both from 1976, are more fantasies and yet are
profoundly written and very interesting to watch. Duelle
circles around the Queen of the Sun (Bulle Ogier) and the Queen of
the Night (Juliet Berto) search for a magical diamond in present-day
Paris. Noroit
is a bizarre pirate/fantasy that stars Geraldine Chaplin (Nashville,
Cria
cuervos).
Also
included is Merry-Go-Round
(1981) that stars Joe Dallesandro (Flesh
for Frankenstein,
Blood
For Dracula)
and Maria Schneider (The
Passenger,
Last
Tango in Paris).
The
films in this set overall star Jean-Pierre Leaud, Bulle Ogier,
Michael Lonsdale, Juliet Berto, Geraldine Chaplin, Joe Dallesandro,
and Maria Schneider to name a few.
Presented
in 1080p high definition with widescreen aspect ratios of 1.85:1 and
1.37:1, and paired with nice sounding 1.0 PCM Mono tracks to preserve
the original recordings, the films look and sound great on Blu-ray
disc with little to complain about. Also included are standard DVD
versions of the films with similar specs, but obviously compressed,
that are up to snuff with the format but not as impressive as the
Blu-ray copies.
Special
Features...
The
Mysteries of Paris: Jacques Rivette's Out 1 Revisited
- a brand-new feature length documentary by Robert Fischer and
Wilfried Reichart containing interviews with actors Bulle Ogier,
Michael Lonsdale and Hermine Karagheuz, cinematographer
Pierre-William Glenn, assistant director Jean-Francois Stevenin and
producer Stephane Tchalgadjieff, as well as rare archival interviews
with actors Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Michel Delahaye, and director
Jacques Rivette.
Scenes
from a Parallel Life: Jacques Rivette Remembers
- archive interview with the director, in which he discusses Duelle
(une quarantaine), Noroit
(une vengeance) and Merry-Go-Round,
featuring additional statements from Bulle Ogier and Hermine
Karagheuz.
Brand-new
interview with critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who reported from the sets
of both Duelle
(une quarantaine) and Noroit
(une vengeance).
Exclusive
perfect-bound book containing new writing on the films by Mary M.
Wiles, Brad Stevens, Ginette Vincendeau and Nick Pinkerton.
Kiju
Yoshida/Love + Anarchism
Next
we have three arthouse films from Japanese filmmaker Kiju Yoshida
land in this very special limited edition release from Arrow Films in
grand fashion. The set dubbed Love
+ Anarchism
includes Eros
+ Massacre
(1969), presented here in both its 169-minute theatrical version and
the full-length 220-minute director's cut, Heroic
Purgatory
(1970), and Coup
d'etat
(1973) - all of which intertwine to tell a complicated story of
politics in the late 1960s - early 1970s in Japan.
The
films star Mariko Okada, Toshiyuki Hosokawa, Yuko Kusunoki, and
Etsushi Takahashi.
In
Eros+Massacre,
which is considered Kiju Yoshida's most groundbreaking work, he
compares in glorious black and white, the love and independence of
anarchist Osugi Sakae, who was assassinated by the military in 1923,
to the vanguard of modern day Japan. The story tells of Sakae's
relationship with three women: Hori Yasuko, his wife; Ito Noe, his
third lover, who was to die with him; and his jealous second lover,
Masaoka Itsuko, a militant feminist who attempts to kill him in a tea
house in 1916. Parallel to the reconstitution of Osugi's life, two
students do research on the political theories and ideas of free love
that he upheld. Some of the characters from the past and from the
present meet and engage the themes of the movie.
In
Heroic
Purgatory,
Rikiya Shoda is an engineer working for the Atomic Agency in Japan
after spending a few years studying at the MIT. He's working on a
new project involving the creation of laser beams. One day, his wife
Nanako, comes back home with a lost teenager called Ayu. A man, who
pretends to be Ayu's father, come to get her back but Ayu keeps
telling him that Rikiya and Nanako are her parents. With this girl
entering their peaceful life, Rikiya suddenly begins to remember his
youth when he was a revolutionary and a much different person.
In
Coup
d'etat,
we follow the story of Ikka Kita who is a revolutionary that suffers
when he is brought his younger brother's clothes, still smeared with
his blood. Ikka's brother followed the revolutionary's precept and
acted, attempting on the life of a financial group manager and then,
unable to escape, stooped to suicide. Now, Ikka is more determined
than ever to take his own teachings to the ultimate end in this
conclusion to the loose trilogy.
Presented
in black and white 1080p high definition with widescreen aspect
ratios of 2.35:1(on Eros)
and 1.33:1 respectively, the restored films look magnificent on
Blu-ray disc with uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM Audio on all films and
newly translated English subtitles to boot. Also included are
standard DVD versions of the films with the same widescreen aspect
ratio and compressed mono tracks that don't sound or look as good as
the Blu-rays but are up to standards with the format.
Special
Features...
Yoshida
...or: The Explosion of the Story
- a 30-minute documentary on Eros
+ Massacre
with contributions from Yoshida and film critics Mathieu Capel and
Jean Douchet
Introductions
to Heroic
Purgatory
and Coup
d'etat
by Yoshida
Newly-filmed
discussions of Eros
+ Massacre,
Heroic
Purgatory
and Coup
d'etat
by David Desser, author of Eros
Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave,
recorded exclusively for this release
Scene-select
commentaries by David Desser on all three films
Heroic
Purgatory
theatrical trailer
Coup
d'etat
theatrical trailer
Limited
edition packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Maarko
Phntm
Illustrated
80-page perfect-bound book featuring new writing on the films by
David Desser, Isolde Standish (author of Politics,
Porn and Protest: Japanese Avant-Garde Cinema
in the 1960s and 1970s) and Dick Stegewerns (author of Kiju
Yoshida: 50 Years of Avant-Garde Filmmaking in Post-War Japan).
If
you're a fan of Japanese cinema and some of the political aspects to
the culture, then these are definitely worth checking out. A bit
heavy for their time in a dramatic sense, these films may make you
feel uneasy... which is kind of the point.
-
James Lockhart
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/