It's a mixed blessing, but Claude Chabrol's 1991 adaptation of Madame Bovary can at least claim a proper French pedigree in its fidelity to Flaubert's literary classic. It's certainly more faithful than Madame herself, played here with icy determination by Isabelle Huppert. Frustrated, repressed, and desperate for any opportunity to break free of her numbing marital bondage, the wife of Dr. Bovary finds her chance in the affections of Rodolphe Boulanger (Christophe Malavoy), but she is too shallow and too selfish to sense his lack of commitment. And as Flaubert's tale unfolds (along with Chabrol's dryly accurate interpretation), Emma Bovary finds herself caught in a snare of her own design. This tragedy of self-absorption-a universal study of indulgence, ignominy, and fatal discontent-should prove potent for anyone who feels the oppression of an unhappy marriage, but it's also a compelling study of boredom as an internal phenomenon. Huppert conveys exasperation, passion, and self-destruction in equal measure, yet she barely alters her passive, blank expression; her performance is too cold to ignite the resonant themes of Flaubert's novel. All in all, one wonders if Chabrol-seemingly uneasy with costume drama-is being too respectful of Flaubert at the cost of his own directorial mastery. This is a prestigious and worthwhile adaptation, but like one of Dr. Bovary's patients, it's been bled to the point of paleness and fainting. [+]

In his adaptation of the Tristan and Isolde legend, Jean Cocteau modernizes its eternal theme while making his mark as a master of poetic realism. The tragic story of a young man who falls hopelessly in love with his uncle's wife conjures both beauty and agony through intense dramatic performances, romantic Wagnerian music, and imaginative settings.

Amateur movies shot with small handheld cameras by six German infantrymen on the Eastern Front during World War II form the core of this documentary. The men who took the movies appear on camera as old men to provide narration (in German, with subtitles), and they provide a perspective not often heard. As might be expected, they distance themselves from atrocities, and as they were foot soldiers in the Wehrmacht, their denials of involvement are probably true. One of the men still owns the camera he carried in the war, and he demonstrates how its small size made it perfect for impromptu filming in the field. Clips of smiling troops on the move is accompanied by an old man talking about how happy they were to be going to an unknown destination, likening it to "the joy one feels when on a journey. " It turns out the gleeful trip he recalls was actually the beginning of the invasion of Poland and thus the beginning of the war in Europe. Later footage shows combat conditions in Russia, and the grisly aftermath of vicious combat. The rarity of the film footage, some of which was shot in color, makes this documentary worth watching. But the recollections of the amateur cameramen also provide an unusual insight into the German war machine, such as when one of the old veterans mentions how he eventually realized, "This was no defensive war forced upon us, it was an idiotic war of aggression. " -Robert J. [+]

Triumph of the Will is one of the most important films ever made. Not because it documents evil-more watchable examples are being made today. And not as a historical example of blind propaganda-those (much shorter) movies are merely laughable now. No, Riefenstahl's masterpiece-and it is a masterpiece, politics aside-combines the strengths of documentary and propaganda into a single, overwhelmingly powerful visual force. Riefenstahl was hired by the Reich to create an eternal record of the 1934 rally at Nuremberg, and that's exactly what she does. You might not become a Nazi after watching her film, but you will understand too clearly how Germany fell under Hitler's spell. The early crowd scenes remind one of nothing so much as Beatles concert footage (if only their fans were so well behaved!). Like the fascists it monumentalizes, Triumph of the Will overlooks its own weaknesses-at nearly two hours, the speeches tend to drone on, and the repeated visual motifs are a little over-hypnotic, especially for modern viewers. But the occasional iconic vista (banners lining the streets of Nuremberg, Hitler parting a sea of 200,000 party members standing at attention) will electrify anyone into wakefulness. -Grant Balfour.

1 copy each of: The 400 Blows, The Last Metro, Confidentially Yours, Love on the Run, Shoot the Piano Player, Two English Girls

A pioneer couple struggles to settle in Minnesota and start a new life.

A landmark title in the evolution of CinemaScope, Bhowani Junction is a fascinating but exasperating instance of a provocative film running head-on into studio interference and censorship. This would be the next-to-last project in George Cukor's long history as an MGM director, and despite its rejection at the time, admirers regard it as one of his most personal achievements. What's irreducibly admirable is Cukor's sensuous embrace of India as both the film's location and its "major character. " With F. A. Young as cinematographer (six years before Young shot David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia), this director chiefly associated with intimate settings and soundstage productions created rich, gold-brown canvases surging powerfully with vast crowds and unrest. Ava Gardner plays a half-British, half-Indian woman trying to find an identity for herself at that moment in 1947 when Great Britain was preparing to withdraw from the country it had ruled for two centuries. Her dilemma is focused through her relationships with several men: a fellow half-caste (Bill Travers) who's been her longtime lover, a slimy British junior officer (Lionel Jeffries), a pure-blood Indian aspiring to make her his bride (Francis Matthews), and the senior British officer (Stewart Granger) whose fierce ambivalence must inevitably mutate into passionate love. If it's sensuousness you're after, you can do a lot worse than having the luscious Gardner at the center of your movie, and the actress responded beautifully to both the exotic setting and Cukor's direction. Alas, Granger was mostly a stick (Cukor wanted Trevor Howard), and the script is awful-structurally incoherent and endlessly recycling bald-faced declarations of the divided-ethnicity theme. [+]

This sweet, sad movie about the yearning of an adolescent girl brought acclaim to French starlet Charlotte Gainsbourg. Thirteen-year-old Charlotte (Gainsbourg) bickers with her family, has become an outcast at school, and generally feels that her life lacks all beauty and happiness. When she accidentally meets a beatific young piano prodigy named Clara, Charlotte hopes this girl will become her friend and take her away to a better world-but in order to worm her way into Clara's life, Charlotte lets a creepy sailor into hers. Director Claude Miller (Alias Betty, The Accompanist) formerly worked with François Truffaut, whose influence can be seen here-L'Effrontée has a light, relaxed tone that allows small, human details to emerge without apparent effort. Gainsbourg gives a winning performance, mostly by letting Charlotte be sullen, difficult, and innnocently self-deluding; she feels remarkably real. -Bret Fetzer Charlotte, a disillusioned teenager living in Savoie, realizes the joys and sorrows of adolescence after becoming enamored with a sophisticated young pianist visiting her town.