Digital Week – February 7

Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy, made in 1993 and 1994 and based on the colors of the French flag, varies wildly in quality—austere “Blue,” clumsy “White,” occasionally affecting Red—with each starring a then-young French/Swiss actress (Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Irene Jacob). I prefer Kieslowski’s Polish films, which culminated in the awe-inspiring Decalogue; contrarily, his airy, elliptical French films come off as aesthetic and dramatic misfires. The one memorable constant is Kieslowski compatriot and composer Zbigniew Peisner’s varied scores. The Criterion Collection, of course, gives the trilogy the deluxe treatment, from the splendidly grainy UHD visuals to the plethora of extras (video essays/featurettes/interviews on each film and early Kieslowski shorts on each disc).

Italian director Dino Risi’s adventurous 1960 comedy-drama tells the compellingly complex story of post-WWII Italian history through the on-again, off-again relationship of a progressive writer Silvio and the beautiful Elena, whom he meets while hiding from the Nazis. They fall in love, get separated, find each other, get married, break up, get back together, and generally act like their fellow Italians do in the volatile political, social, class and economic upheavals of that era. It never truly coheres, almost inevitably, because so much is going on—preceding this splendid restoration, there are many unnecessary intro titles that try to explain what happens in the next two hours—but Alberto Sordi is a terrific Silvio, the magnificent Lea Massari is a transcendent Elena, and Risi has made a challenging examination of his native country’s psyche.

Reminiscent of the Dardennes’ “Two Days, One Night” and Benoit Jacquot’s “A Single Girl,” Éric Gravel’s film breathlessly follows harried single mother Julie, who is juggling her high-stress position as head chambermaid at a top Parisian hotel with taking care of her children, literally running from home to work and back, all the while looking for a betterm less harried place of employment. Like those two previous features, Gravel’s drama takes lazy shortcuts and ends up being a superficial showcase—as for both Marian Cotillard and Virginie Ledoyen—for Laure Calamy, who gives a spectacular but showy performance, brilliant in spots but undercut by her director’s singlemindedness.

As in earlier films such as his breakthrough, “The Band’s Visit,” writer-director Eran Kolirin has made another audacious film skirting the line between black comedy and outright tragedy; Palestinian-born Israeli citizen Sami, returning to his hometown from Jerusalem for his brother’s wedding—and where he reunites with his estranged wife Mira, whom he’s cheating on with a colleague—finds himself trapped when the military authorities suddenly begin building a wall as part of a local blockade. As usual, Kolirin incisively finds humor and horror in a real but patently absurd situation, which doubles as a pointed satire of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The superlative cast is led by Alex Bacri as the put-upon Sami and Juna Suleiman as the spirited Mira.

This routine crime thriller about a locksmith named Miller who, after getting out of prison for a robbery in which his best friend was killed by a corrupt cop, tries to make amends by agreeing to a risky robbery at the behest of his dead friend’s sister April. The twists and turns of Joe Russo and Chris LaMont’s script are predictable from the get-go, and despite a game cast led by Ryan Philippe (Miller), Kate Bosworth (Miller’s ex, Beth, who’s also a detective), Ving Rhames (Miller’s best bud) and Gabriela Quezada (April), director Nicolas Harvard is unable to make this more than a pale imitation of better genre pictures.

When the drug crisis overwhelmed Vancouver—with more people fatally overdosing than ever—a special clinic, the Overdose Prevention Society, opened to help addicts with supervised dosages to mitigate fatalities. Director Colin Askey chronicles the difficulties but ultimate triumphs of the clinic’s staff—comprising former and current drug users—who do whatever they can to help others in this important report from the front lines of a war that might be winnable with the right soldiers.

This cogent if familiar character study of Russian sociology student Lera, who, as Gerda, becomes a stripper to continue her studies of ordinary people as well as earn needed extra money, is too dour, set as it is in a bleak environment that’s underscored in nearly every shot. Anastasiya Krasovskaya gives an intense portrayal of Lera/Gerda, who lives with her single mother, but despite director-writer Natalya Kudryashova’s obvious knowledge of this milieu, her film is too one-note to be a truly effective psychological portrait.