New DVDS: June 3, 2008

Jean-Jacques Beineix gloriously remastered cult classic Diva (1981) sparkles with ideas, every shot is a delight, every element aims to please — it’s a joyous celebration of the possibilities of cinema. America opera star Wilhelmina Wiggins-Fernandez stars as the titular diva, an extraordinarly striking woman with a heavenly voice who refused to be recorded. She is wooed by a young French mail-carrier Jules (Frederic Andrei) who idolizes her, but their odd romance is disturbed by Taiwanese crimicals who threaten to release a bootleg.

It's an enormous challenge to reenact the life of a beloved cult star, but Sam Riley, in his first file role, does just that. In Anton Corbijn's luminously filmed, black and white bio pic Control, Riley plays Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division who committed suicide at the age of 23. The young actor smolders with intensity; he doesn't so much resemble the tormented star as become him. The film also stars Samantha Morton as his young bride Debbi and Alexandra Maria Lara as the Belgian journalist who steals him away.

In The Untouchable, the second collaboration between filmmaker Benoît Jacquot and French actress Isild le Besco, an actress learns that her real father is an Indian man, an Untouchable, and travels to the banks of the Ganges river to discover her identity. Benoit's film goes from moment to moment without ever explicitly exploring the causality of Jeanne's actions, using the camera as a roving witness, a shadow. Le Besco has a complicated face: she can appear astonishingly beautiful in one scene and mousy in the next. Her toothy wide smile is like an explosion of happiness. Much like A Tout de Suite Benoit seems to make movies just to explore the range of her face.