This beloved 1962 film from the golden age of international cinema can't help but look terribly self-conscious now, full of ambivalent nods to the contemporaneous vitality of the French New Wave (an obligatory iris shot of star Hardy Kruger, for instance, as seen through something like a tiny knothole). There is also a fair amount of dragging and wasted motion in the overlong story, but even that is forgivable given this film's extraordinary, soulful portrait of a beautiful if impossible relationship. Kruger plays Pierre, a former military pilot whose plane crashed after a bombing raid in Indochina. Killing a little girl in the process, Pierre suffers a psychological trauma that is lessened by the company of a 12-year-old orphan named Cybele (Patricia Gozzi), herself an abandoned, luckless child in need of companionship. Meeting every Sunday, the two become immersed in a deeply affectionate world of their own, where nothing unsavory actually occurs yet a full range of emotional colors seems possible-much like two innocents reborn in each other's eyes. Cowriter and director Serge Bourguignon adopts a fairy-tale tone for both the central bond between Pierre and Cybele as well as the oddly harsh, uncaring social environment that inevitably condemns their union. Bourguignon is lucky to have a couple of important allies: Maurice Jarre for the musical score and legendary cinematographer Henri Decae behind the lens. While these artists can't save Bourguignon from his own trite excesses as a visualist, they enhance his considerable feeling for the redemptive poetry of an unlikely love. -Tom Keogh.

High-Definition transfer, with new electronic subtitles. A pre-cursor to Francois Truffaut's 400 Blows and a major influence on the French New Wave. From one of the most intriguing personas in film history. Much more than simply a classic of world cinema, Zero de Conduite's blend of pure joy and anarchist satire will burn itself into your memory forever. Set in a boarding school outside Paris, four young boys secretly plot to subvert the grotesque and oppressive administration led by an overly dignified midget in full formal wear, and a headmaster and dormitory monitor appropriately named Fishface and the Creep. Such an anarchistic vision so upset French authorities that the film was banned for over ten years, and only reappeared after Jean Vigo's untimely death at the age of 29. This tender and ferocious elegy to youthfulness has been previously available in unwatchable bootleg versions. We are proud to be offering this masterpiece in a new transfer, which illuminates the wonderful absurdities of Vigo's world. It's hard to believe that this fantastical tale of a schoolboy rebellion was banned in its native France for 12 years following its initial 1933 release (for supposed anti-French sentiment). Perhaps the French authorities were remembering director Jean Vigo's father, a famous French anarchist who died in prison, or just concerned that Vigo was revealing too much of his own unhappy youth spent in boarding schools. [+]

This late entry in Italian horror auteur Mario Bava's catalog is in keeping with much of his other work: a rather murky plot, inventive camera work and editing, gauzy lighting using red and blue gels, and an atmospheric, dreamlike feel throughout. Where it parts ways with many of his films is in the high body count-so high that many feel Bay of Blood was a likely influence on American slasher films such as Friday the l3th. The killing centers on a list of potential heirs to a piece of lakefront property ripe for development (a subplot involves camping teenagers who are also being slaughtered-sound familiar?). The slayings come fast and furious, with gunshots, chokings, stabbings, decapitations, and a two-for-the-price-of-one impalement, to name a few. Bava creates an off-kilter mood of melancholia for the film that makes it somewhat less fun than the mindless slasher flicks of the 1980s, but also renders it a more thought-provoking, cynical sort of movie. -Jerry Renshaw.

In the hands of Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff), the simple story of a man redeemed by a woman's love is no less than profound. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum pulls the viewer into a world of pure love, intense hear.