In 1965 six French New Wave directors took a Paris neighborhood and concocted a short sketch around it. The results sometimes favor character and story, and sometimes local flavor, but almost all are engaging in their own right. Jean Douchet and Jean-Luc Godard (repsectively) offer gloriously French slices of romantic comedy in the sexually open 1960s with "Saint Germain des Prés" and "Montparnasse et Levallois. " Jean Rouch's "Gare du Nord" is slight of substance but beautifully explores the neighborhood in a gorgeous tracking shot. Jean-Daniel Pollet's "Rue Saint-Denis" offers two delicious characters in a witty comedy of a mousy dishwasher who brings a brassy streetwalker to his dumpy apartment. Eric Rohmer's "Place de l'Étoile," a sometimes silly but deftly managed little comedy of a man who strikes a panhandler and is terrified he killed him, displays a giddy goofiness unseen in his later work. Claude Chabrol's shiver-inducing slice of urban life "La Muette" ventures outside the oppressive hallways and tiny rooms only once, at the end, as if to celebrate the escape of the rebellious boy from his bickering parents. The strongest of a solid collection, Chabrol's chilly view of dead-end relationships in a splintered upper class family concludes the otherwise lighthearted collection on a devastating, dark note. Released in France under the more evocative title Paris Vu Par. [+]

Anyone having high hopes for the artistic collaboration between Robin Williams and director Bill Forsyth (who made Local Hero, perhaps the most enjoyable film of the 1980s) probably left this movie disappointed. Forsyth is attempting nothing less than The Ages of Man, using Williams as his representative of humanity through history. Cast as a kind of Everyman, Williams plays a guy who can't seem to get his family situation straightened out to his satisfaction, whether he's trying to protect his family from Vikings in prehistoric times, being a nomad in the Middle Ages, or showing up as an unhappy divorced guy in contemporary times who's trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter. It's worth a look, if only for the opportunity to see how a big idea can go decidedly wrong and to observe what happens when a director gets a hold of an unworkable concept that he believes in completely. Williams wears a pained expression through most of the film. -Marshall Fine.

This film about Ethiopian distance runner Haile Gebrsellasie, who won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and is considered one of the greatest runners of all time, is a dramatization that often appears to be a documentary. Beautifully photographed, the footage shot in Haile's native land is often spectacular enough to make you think you're watching a National Geographic special. Haile's young life, such as a scene when his family is listening to a news report about warfare in Ethiopia and a report comes on about the 1980 Olympics, is portrayed with apparent accuracy, but not without a great deal of drama. There are many scenes of Haile running, past wildlife in the countryside or through crowded city slums, and while this gives what must be an accurate idea of him developing his athletic regimen, this is also not terribly dramatic on camera. Eventually, Haile is shown racing in Atlanta, valiantly overtaking all competition; his family back in Ethiopia is shown gathered around a television set, jubilantly watching his triumph. And while there's no denying that this is a touching and inspiring human story, the slow pace of the presentation tends to work against the inherent drama. -Robert J. McNamara Here's the triumphant, true-life story of an Olympic hero. [+]

Sally Potter's self-reflective film stars Potter (an actress and the director of Orlando), more or less as herself, learning to tango from master dancer Pablo Veron and considering making a film called The Tango Lesson. The film that we happen to be watching, however, is concerned largely with the delicious conflict between the politics of tango-the need for one partner, typically the woman, to yield to the other-and the expectations of the filmmaker to do things on her own terms. Can Potter simultaneously surrender and control for the duration of this circular project? The question is made more complicated by Veron's desire to be in one of Potter's films-in other words, to follow her lead. Potter may not be Veron's equal on the dance floor, but that isn't the point of this interesting movie and its provocative, internal debate. -Tom Keogh.

The police squad of Saint-Tropez has been chosen to represent France at the International Police Convention in New York City. But the daughter of the squad's sergeant stows away on their ship and turns the trip into an unforgettable nightmare for her father.

A brash young American comes to London to star in a major new production-and becomes the central character in a mystery fueled by intrigue and passion.

The title says it all: this is a visual symphony in five movements celebrating the Berlin of 1927: the people, the place, the everyday details of life on the streets. Director Walter Ruttman, an experimental filmmaker, approached cinema in similar ways to his Russian contemporary Dziga Vertoz, mixing documentary, abstract, and expressionist modes for a nonnarrative style that captured the life of his countrymen. But where Vertov mixed his observations with examples of the communist dream in action, Ruttman re-creates documentary as, in his own words, "a melody of pictures. " Within the loose structure of a day in the life of the city (with a prologue that travels from the country into the city on a barreling train), the film takes us from dawn to dusk, observing the silent city as it awakens with a bustle of activity, then the action builds and calms until the city settles back into sleep. But the city is as much the architecture, the streets, and the machinery of industry as it is people, and Ruttman weaves all these elements together to create a portrait in montage, the poetic document of a great European city captured in action. Held together by rhythm, movement, and theme, Ruttman creates a documentary that is both involving and beautiful to behold. The original score by Timothy Brock is lyrical and dramatically involving, complementing the mood and movement marvelously. Also included is the avant-garde short Opus 1, an abstract study in animated shapes and movement. -Sean Axmaker.

This controversial 1969 film directed by rebellious Russian filmmaker Sergei Paradzhanov (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors) chronicles the life of the 18th-century poet Sayat Nova, but in a most unconventional way. Paradzhanov seeks to portray the poet by different actors at various stages of his long life, from a poor childhood working on farms through early celebration as a poet to his self-imposed isolation as a cloistered monk. The unorthodox stream-of-consciousness style of the film highlights character over plot, using the poet's own words as a springboard for sumptuous images that chart the course of his life from birth until death, from his youth and the great love of his life through his struggles with religion and philosophy and the despair of old age. The loose, evocative style not only brings to life the poetry of Sayat Nova's body of work, but also brings great weight to the poetry of his life. Challenging, defiant, and unconventional, The Color of Pomegranates is a must for those searching for new and different forms of filmmaking. -Robert Lane.

This 1963 extravaganza, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, is certainly an epic historical drama with all the elements: elaborate sets, intricate costuming, name actors, a factual basis, and an overlong script (just over four hours). But the acting is well performed and the backdrops are lush, making this a film worth seeing. Elizabeth Taylor is Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen who seduces Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) in a political move to hold onto her empire. When Caesar is killed in the Roman Senate, Cleopatra looks to Marc Antony (Richard Burton) for his support, practically enslaving him with her wiles. Taylor is dramatic in her role, at times overly serious, but stunning nonetheless as the woman described as "well versed in the natural sciences and mathematics. She speaks seven languages proficiently. Were she not a woman one would consider her to be an intellectual. " While the film does seem to drag at moments, it deserves the four Oscars it won for cinematography, art direction-set direction, costumes, and special effects. Don't confuse this Cleopatra with the 1934 version directed by Cecil B. [+]

Vittoria De Sica's mastery of neorealism was already well apparent in 1944's The Children Are Watching Us, an excellent, emotionally devastating drama that marked De Sica's first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini. While not as well known as De Sica's later masterpieces The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Umberto D. (1952), the film shares many of De Sica's stylistic trademarks, beginning with his exquisite use of real Italian locations in telling the story of Pricò, an observant and inquisitive 4-year-old boy who bears silent witness to his mother's infidelity and the subsequent collapse of his parents' marriage. Like Carol Reed's thematically similar classic The Fallen Idol, De Sica's film is seen almost exclusively through the eyes and perception of this innocent young boy, and the frank treatment of adultery and its effect on Pricò was considered quite shocking for Italian audiences who were emphatically concerned with the sanctity of childhood. What seems dramatically tame by modern standards still retains much of its power, notably due to the remarkable performance of Luciano De Ambrosis, who was barely five years old when the film was shot in the summer of 1942, just before the violence of World War II would erupt all over Italy. In combining empathy for his characters with the graceful sentimentality that would be refined in his later classics, De Sica refrains from judging the weaknesses of Pricò's parents, both of whom love the boy equally but are ill-equipped to avoid the disintegration of the relationship. This places Pricò in the middle of a gut-wrenching dilemma, and the boy responds with understandable grief and confusion. In running away, he shifts the story toward a heartbreaking conclusion, lending substance to the film's alternate title (The Little Martyr) with a final image that's simply unforgettable. Criterion's exquisite DVD release presents this potent drama in a new, fully restored high-definition digital transfer, and includes illuminating video interviews with De Ambrosis (well into his sixties, with vivid memories of working with De Sica) and De Sica film scholar Callisto Cosulich. The 24-page booklet features mini-essays by film scholar Peter Brunette (writing about The Children Are Watching Us) and film critic Stuart Klawans on the unique collaboration of De Sica and Zavattini. [+]

Georges Franju brings a haunting poetry to this lyrical and horrifying 1959 French classic. Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a famed plastic surgeon, lures a young woman to his secluded mansion with the help of his mistress Louise (Alida Valli), where he proceeds to remove their faces in an attempt to restore his daughter's scarred visage. Christiane (Edith Scob), disfigured in car accident caused by her guilt-ridden father, hides behind a spooky blank mask that exposes only her sad, lonely eyes, which seem to lose a little more life after each failed graft. Franju's cool presentation gives an unsettling edge to the picture, from the uncomfortably quiet family dinners to Christiane's hesitant explorations of her father's laboratory to the unflinching views of Genessier's bloody operations. Reminiscent of Cocteau's fantasy imagery in Beauty and the Beast, Franju creates an eerie poetry of the doctor's sadistic experiments, culminating in an astonishingly brutal and beautiful finale. The screenplay was cowritten by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, authors of the novels which became Les Diaboliques and Vertigo. Originally titled Les Yeux Sans Visage upon its original French release, the film was cut, dubbed, and renamed The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus for American distribution in 1962, but was restored years later for American re-release. -Sean Axmaker.

Set in England during the early 19th century, Pandaemonium evokes late-1960s America in its depiction of the relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Linus Roach) and William Wordsworth (John Hannah). Instead of going to Vietnam, Wordsworth goes off to fight against the French while Coleridge stays at home and promotes utopianism. After the war, the poets live and work together with Coleridge's wife, Sara (Samantha Morton), and Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy (Emily Woof). At first this communal arrangement works to the advantage of Coleridge-who does some of his best writing while Wordsworth stagnates-until Coleridge becomes addicted to opium. Wordsworth, meanwhile, doesn't find his voice until he abandons his friend. In 20th-century vernacular, Wordsworth is the yuppie, Coleridge the hippie. Director Julien Temple (Absolute Beginners) even evokes 1960s cinema with this occasionally overwrought-but often visually stunning-essay on the mysteries of creativity. -Kathleen C. Fennessy.