Film Clips: Nov. 22, 2021

Alexander Nevsky (Corinth Films/Image Entertainment DVD)

Russia was invaded many times from the west, leaving a paranoia that may be one key to Vladimir Putin’s thinking. One early assault by Western invaders was dramatized in director Sergei Eisenstein’s 1938 classic, Alexander Nevsky.

Alexander Nevsky is based on the brutal medieval crusade against Russia by the German-based Roman Catholic order, the Teutonic Knights. The film’s titular real-life hero is depicted as a model leader who won by strategy and oratory, rousing the populace to defend their homeland and luring the Germans into disaster in the icy Russian winter. Alexander Nevsky strongly influenced Star Wars with its depiction of the Teutonic Knights as the visual embodiment of pure evil and its rhythmic clash and clamor during the climactic battle. Cinematic brilliance notwithstanding, Eisenstein was a propagandist for the party line, which by 1938 became nationalistic Bolshevism. (David Luhrssen)

Encanto (In theaters Nov. 24)

Opening its window wider on diversity, Disney’s Encanto explores a Columbian family whose fortunes depend on the wit and grit of teen protagonist Mirabel Madrigal (voice of Stephanie Beatriz). Each member of Mirabel’s family, including her aunts and cousins, possess a unique magical power. The clan lives in an enchanted house situated within a mystical forest. Whip-smart Mirabel is the sole Madrigal lacking a magical gift. Yet, she’s also the only member able to find out why the family's special powers are weakening and whether they can be restored. Original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda document their victories and trials, but the most entertaining moments result from the magical capabilities of the Madrigal family abode. (Lisa Miller)

“Giallo Essentials” (Arrow Video Blu-ray)

In The Possessed (1965), the first of three films in this box set, a disenchanted novelist returns off-season to his favorite hotel in a remote town. On the streets, he follows the woman he met there the year before—but it’s not her. He’s later told that she killed herself—but then he hears rumors that it was murder.

The film by Italian directors Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rossellini is as much European art house as film noir (and owes some debt to Hitchcock). Reality becomes unstable as the novelist awakens from nightmares into obsessive daydreams as he pursues a mystery with missing clues. Few films have captured so well the chill of cold rain and winter wind through bare branches.

By the time he made The Fifth Chord (1971), Bazzoni had settled into giallo, an Italian genre of lurid crime pictures. Like most films of that sort, The Fifth Chord features a serial killer whose warped agenda results in baroque murders (with lots of voyeurism along the way). And like the best of the genre, The Fifth Chord is imaginatively visual; the odd angles and lenses give viewers a glimpse of the killer’s perspective as chilling suspense unfolds along spiral stairways in an architecture of unease. Ennio Morricone wrote the score. The set’s third film, Flavio Mogherini’s The Pyjama Girl Case (1977), is set in an unusual giallo location, Australia, and features an international cast headed by Ray Milland as a retired police inspector. (David Luhrssen)

House of Gucci (In theaters Nov. 24)

This is the purported true story of Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), an outsider rising from humble beginnings to marry into the Gucci family. Ridley Scott found Sara Gay Forden’s 2001 book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, a good read, prompting the director to acquire film rights. Since then, three different productions were planned, only to be tabled, until, in 2019 when it came to fruition. Gucci family members claim Forden’s book is riddled with inaccuracies, but even if that’s true, the film’s lush sets, period wardrobe and authentic locations, along with family members portrayed by Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Adam Driver, make this effort one of quality. In what could be construed as a stamp of approval, Salma Hayek, married to Gucci’s parent company CEO, Francois-Henri Pinault, appears in a supporting role. (Lisa Miller)