Jerzy Skolimowski’s film Barrier, the second in this Blu-Ray set of three early features from Second Run, begins with a manifesto. A youthful man is complaining that the young are always expected to make sacrifices while the old simply accumulate wealth, and questions why it can’t be him in the […]
Second Run
Happy End (1967): the kind of film that could spark a lifelong obsession with Czech comedy (Review)
The Village Detective: A Song Cycle (2021) The Ocean Gives Up Its Mysteries (Review)
In 2016, a crew of Icelandic fishermen operating in the North Atlantic Ocean, dredged up something surprising from the seabed – four decaying reels of film, semi-preserved by the ocean’s natural resources of hydrogen sulphide, that set innovative documentarian Bill Morrison, of Dawson City: Frozen Time fame, on a fascinating […]
Worlds: Selected Works by Ben Rivers (2003-2022): Ghosts in the Machine (Review)
Released on Blu-ray by Second Run this week, Worlds: Selected Works by Ben Rivers is a collection of short films – some twenty-four of varying length across two discs – by the internationally renowned British artist and filmmaker, whose experimental work often focuses on subjects that have separated themselves from […]
Pearls of the Deep (1966) Manifesto of the Czech New Wave (Review)
Anthology and portmanteau movies are often something of a curate’s egg, and never more so than when those films feature the work of several directors. Released by Second Run this week, Pearls of the Deep was a 1966 showcase for young Czechoslovakian filmmakers. It was subsequently heralded as the manifesto […]
Interrogation (1982): merciless, Kafkaesque, a two-hour pressure cooker (Blu-Ray Review)
There aren’t many home media releases where a highlight of the additional features is the transcript of a government meeting. But then, there aren’t many films with a history like Ryszard Bugajski’s Interrogation, released on Blu-Ray by Second Run. Second Run have previously released this film on DVD, but that […]
The Circus Tent (1978) – A documentary-esque look at the drifting lifestyle of the marginalised [Review]
Known as Thamp̄, a title which translates into The Circus Tent, the acclaimed third film of Indian writer/director Govindan Aravindan was once thought to be lost. The Film Heritage Foundation spent nearly eight painstaking months restoring the film from a duplicate negative taken from a 35mm print and managed to […]
Twilight (1990): an irresistible challenge that upends the detective genre (Review)
There are many mysteries to unpick in the new Second Run release, but the one that had me the most perplexed is this: what were people watching before this restoration? Because, as Stanley Schtinter’s booklet and several of the interviews on this disc attest, György Fehér’s debut theatrical release was […]
Morgiana (1972) A weird, stimulating, terrible and beautiful dreamscapes of malice (Review)
Morgiana tells the twisted tale of sisters Klára and Viktoria, torn apart by jealousy, greed and malice. When Klára inherits their father’s estate, leaving Viktoria with the wind battered, remote country house, Viktoria seethes. When the man Viktoria loves falls in love with Klára, Viktoria boils. And when Klára continues […]
Laurin (1988): A Luscious Piece of European Gothic Cinema (Review)
This new Blu-ray release of Laurin from Second Run highlights the debut of German director Robert Sigl, who made the feature when he was only 26 years old. Two accompanying short films provide some context for the preceding and following work to Laurin. Both star Sigl, with ‘Der Weihnachtsbaum/The Christmas […]