Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: Hope and Glory, The Sacrifice, Mermaids and In the Fade.
Hope and Glory
With Hope and Glory (1987), British director John Boorman (Deliverance) draws on boyhood memories from World War II. There are many comical moments (the backyard bomb shelter that keeps filling with groundwater), but the enduring impression is of the distance—and the intersection—between everyday worries and global calamity. Mom is last to know when dad joins the army. Hope and Glory also captures a 10-year-old’s perceptions of a war many adults couldn’t comprehend.
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The Sacrifice
Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky filmed The Sacrifice (1986) shortly before his death in Sweden and one could be forgiven for mistaking it for Ingmar Bergman in an especially bizarre mood. Shot in long takes, it muses on faith, mortality, the supernatural and the prospect of nuclear Armageddon. The Blu-ray includes an interesting documentary on the second disc in which Tarkovsky argues that film’s ability to “trap reality and time” exceeds all other art forms.
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Mermaids
Cher was the star of Mermaids (1990) and Bob Hoskins was second-billed ahead of a rising star, Winona Ryder. It’s a thin comedy about a free-spirited Jewish mother (Cher) and her daughter (Ryder) who longs for the moral discipline of Roman Catholicism. Of course, she’s ridden with guilt (“I’m going to burn in hell,” she worries when confronted by cute boys). The best moments are cast-driven, including Hoskins’ role as an affable shoe salesman.
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In the Fade
When a bomb goes off outside her husband’s office, killing him and their 6-year-old son, Katja (Diane Kruger) is faced with tough questions from the police. Her husband was a Kurdish immigrant, a convicted drug dealer, and their inquiries turn to the Mob. But she is convinced they were killed by neo-Nazis. Katja is an unsympathetic emotional wreck but the story—while dragging in spots—opens a window onto anxiety over radical anti-immigrant resentment.
