FLATLAND IS A 19TH CENTURY inter-dimensional head-trip, still popular with math and computer geeks, a fantasy of a two-dimensional being whose mind is blown by his encounters with other dimensions. (Among other things, he discovers that the elite of his own world knew about the existence of a third-dimension, but hid that knowledge from the […]
Finally, the Criterion Collection has brought out Rossellini’s World War II triptych in a lavish box set.
It’s easy to see why John Huston wanted so badly to make a film of this story, and why he treated it as sacred text. Another filmmaker who seemed to treat his sports car as sacred and not much else, Roberto Rossellini, gleefully pilfered The Dead and wove it into a film which, unlike Huston’s, translates Joyce’s epiphanous power into cinema.
Don Quixote – now there’s a loaded character for a filmmaker to take up. Whether Spanish director Albert Serra is a genuine man of vision or a tilter at windmills, credit him at least for the wit and self-understanding to choose the Man from LaMancha as his breakthrough feature subject. Of course, as soon as viewers realize that Serra’s Honor of the Knights (Honor de cavalleria, 2006) sets this beloved character adrift without the familiar narrative — or any narrative at all — they may join the naysayers calling Serra a conman. Or they may join those hailing him a genius.