New Releases for January 23 2024

CHANTAL AKERMAN MASTERPIECES, 1968–1978 (Criterion Collection)

In the revolutionary first decade of her filmmaking career, Chantal Akerman devoted herself to nothing less than the total resculpting of cinematic time and space. Journeying between Europe and New York City, Akerman forged a highly personal style that fuses avant-garde influences with deeply human expressions of alienation, desire, and displacement—themes that she would explore in a series of increasingly ambitious shorts, documentaries, and features, including the towering Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. With immersive rhythms that render the most minute details momentous, these landmarks of twentieth-century art continue to reveal new ways of experiencing cinema and framing reality.

Films in this set:

• Les rendez-vous d'Anna and 2K digital restorations of Saute ma ville; L'enfant aimé, ou Je joue à être une femme mariée; La chambre; Hotel Monterey; Le 15/8; Je tu il elle; Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; and News from Home,
• Hanging Out Yonkers, an unfinished film from 1973

(BLU-RAY)

IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT (1973)

Directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate), Impossible Object (also released as Story of a Love Story) is a surreal drama starring Alan Bates (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg), Michel Auclair (The Day of the Jackal), Dominique Sanda (The Conformist), and Lea Massari (L'avventura).

Harry (Bates), a British author living in France with his wife and family, begins an affair with Natalie (Sanda), who herself is unhappily married to Georges (Auclair). However, Harry is unable to untangle the facts of his life from the fictions which he creates, and the line between fantasy and reality become blurred.

Adapted by Nicholas Mosley (Accident) from his own Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, photographed by Claude Renoir (Barbarella), and scored by Michel Legrand (Eve), Impossible Object is a long-overlooked classic of seventies European cinema. (BLU-RAY)

JINNAH (1998) 

Christopher Lee (I, Monster) stars in Jinnah, an epic drama about the life of Pakistan's founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah, directed by Jamil Dehlavi (Born of Fire, Immaculate Conception).

Exploring Jinnah's journey, from political isolation in the Indian National Congress to his leadership of the Muslim League, and from his controversial fight for a Muslim homeland to the Partition of India, this ravishing and enthralling film examines the founding of Pakistan and its bloody aftermath.

Co-starring Indian screen icon Shashi Kapoor (Shakespeare Wallah), and with support from James Fox (Performance), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Sam Dastor (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers), and Maria Aitken (A Fish Called Wanda), Jinnah features a commanding performance from Lee – one which he himself considered to be the best of his career. (BLU-RAY)