The BRD Trilogy Is the Pick of the Week

Legendary director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the most uncompromising observers of human nature that cinema had ever known. He was also a rebel with a devil-may-care attitude, but not unsympathetically towards his characters; characters who were outsiders rejected by society and forced to live their lives the only way they knew how. The three films available in the new Blu-ray upgrade for his famous BRD Trilogy: The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Veronkia Voss (1982), and Lola (1981), showcase strong women who sacrifice their beauty for the things they want in postwar Germany, but not for the most important things they need: love and survival.

For the first time on Blu-ray, the folks at Criterion have lovingly restored three remarkable achievements starring three remarkable actresses (Hanna Schygulla, Rosel Zech, and Barbara Sukowa) at the forefront. As far as I know, the supplements including audio commentaries for all three films; interviews with the actresses, cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger, screenwriter Peter Märthesheimer, and film scholar Eric Rentschler; a conversation with Fassbinder, among others, are recycled, but they should be revelations to film lovers adding this box set to their own collections for the first time. Viva la Fassbinder!

Other interesting releases:

Europa Europa (Criterion): Sixteen-year old German Jew Salomon is separated from his parents after fleeing with them from Poland, where he is forced to assume multiple identities to hide his Jewishness.

High Life (Lionsgate): Claire Denis’s latest feature about a criminals finding themselves in unfathomable situations after being subjected to a human-reproduction experiment.

Alphaville (Kino Lorber): Jean-Luc Godard’s chilling scifi parable about a U.S. secret agent sent to the distant space city of Alphaville to find a missing person and flee the city from its brutal ruler.

Dead of Night (Kino Lorber): A group of strangers who are mysteriously gathered at a country estate each reveal chilling stories of supernatural horror.

Loving Vincent: Collector’s Edition (Cinedigm): A feature documentary about the life and mysterious death of the legendary Vincent van Gogh. Read David Wangberg’s review.