Digital Week – April 29

Italian director Lina Wertmuller—who died in 2021 at age 93—made frantic and garish but intelligent and humane movies for nearly five decades, like this raucous but perceptively comic portrait of Mimi, a loutish chauvinist who dumps his wife for a new woman whom he impregnates, all while trying to finesse being a Communist while trying to hold onto a job in a fraught political climate. Wertmuller always kicks her characters in the rear as she simultaneously laughs with and at them; if there’s a certain rawness to her filmmaking—which would get progressively more confident, culminating in her all-time masterpiece, 1976’s “Seven Beauties”—she always is great with her actors, and Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, in their first of their three Wertmuller pictures as costars, respond with indelible performances.

In Swiss writer-director Petra Volpe’s taut and often urgent drama, harried nurse Floria works a typical hospital night shift, running from patient to patient—some grateful, others not—desperately trying to get other colleagues’ help, even confronting a doctor about to leave (and does), all while doing whatever she can, which includes, at one point, making a mistake in medication. In her screed against woefully understaffed hospitals, Volpe often lays it on too thick, but as her camera records the interactions of Floria and others, it becomes quite clear that Leonie Benesch gives an effortless but intense portrayal that even triumphs over a slightly sentimental final shot that damages but doesn’t destroy all that has gone before.

French director Just Jaeckin (1940-2022), known for softcore like the original “Emmanuelle” (1974) and “The Story of O” (1975), made this 1980 comedy-drama that’s also sex-centered but more character-centered as it chronicles four teen girls’ dealings with boys as well as older men while navigating themselves, their friendships and family life. Although it’s a bit choppy, and the score by Eric Stewart of the band 10cc (whose “I’m Not in Love” makes an egregious appearance) is often misapplied, the energy and charm of its acting quartet—Anne Parillaud (who later became a star in “La Femme Nikita”), Zoé Chauveau, Charlotte Walior and Isabelle Mejias—make this an enjoyable romp. The UHD transfer has a nicely grainy look; extras include a commentary by Jeremy Richey and (on the accompanying Blu-ray) 2025 interview with Mejias, 2022 interview with Jaeckin and 1982 interview with Jaeckin, Parillaud, Cahuveau and Walior.

The initial controversy over Barry Levinson’s 1996 movie as well as the Lorenzo Carcaterra book it was based on—is this story about several men whose deadly prank as young friends informs the rest of their lives true or not?—might have faded but watching the film makes one aware of how manipulative the entire thing is. Still, your mileage may vary on whether that makes the storyline  itself any less compelling, especially since it’s been expertly done by writer-director Levinson and his accomplished cast, from the big star names (DeNiro, Hoffman, Pitt, Bacon, Patric) to the mainly unknown youngsters. The film looks great in UHD; extras are two new featurettes with Levinson interviews.

This grand opera by French composer Fromental Halévy (1799-1862), which dramatizes a then-impossible love between a Jewish woman and a Christian man, was once hugely popular but has since faded from the repertory with only sporadic revivals; this 2024 staging in Frankfurt, Germany, was directed by Tatjana Gürbaca, who does well by the work’s large scale and outsized emotions. An excellent cast is led by Ambur Braid, John Osborne, Gerard Schneider and Monika Buczkowska in four demanding roles for big voices, and the orchestra and chorus are superbly led by conductor Henrik Nánási. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.