This week's recommended DVDs, the European Edition: Shane Meadow's This Is England, Olivier Assayas's La Vie En Rose, the anthology homage to the city of lights Paris, Je t'aime, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's fifteen hour epic Berlin Alexanderplatz.
1. This Is England
After transforming the bucolic English countryside into a site of horror with the nasty revenge tale Dead Man's Shoes, Shane Meadows turns to Maggie Thatcher's England with a skinhead coming-of-age story.
2. Paris, je t'aime (2 Disc Limited Collector's Edition)
Two hours of short films celebrating the most romantic city in the world, directed by an impressive roster of international auteurs and starring a legion of stars: Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Alexander Payne, Gus Van Sant; Natalie Portman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gerard Depardieu, Juliette Binoche, Ludivine Sagnier, Steve Buscemi, Nick Nolte, Marianne Faithfull, Miranda Richardson, Fanny Ardant, Gena Rowlands, Barbet Schroeder, Gaspard Ulliel.
Even with so much talent involved, the film proves a bit uneven, but that's what the fast forward button is for. At its best, Paris, je t'aime can feel mysterious and magical, evoking the romance and longing the city is famous for.
3. Berlin Alexanderplatz
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's fifteen-hour-plus Berlin Alexanderplatz, based on Alfred Döblin's great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already made forty films. Fassbinder’s epic, restored in 2006 and now available on DVD for the first time, follows the hulking, childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to "become an honest soul" amid the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany.
4. La Vie En Rose
Olivier Dahan's La Vie En Rose (La Môme), a portrait of Edith Piaf, France's most famous singer, features a bravura performance by the diminutive but impressively abrasive Marion Cotillard.
