javvie

This documentary gives a intriguing insight into the process of writing, rehearsing and staging a musical. "Martin Guerre", written by the composer team of Alain Boublil and Claude Michel Schoenberg (Les Miserables, Miss Saigon), offers an absorbing story combined with very haunting music. To get a glimpse of what the rehearsals for this underrated musical show must have been like, and to have the composers, the producer, and other people involved comment about the production, is definitely a good reason for trying to get hold of the videotape. The only sad thing about this "making of" is that it cannot capture ALL of Martin Guerre within its 70 minutes length. Unfortunately, the complete show has never been released on video or DVD. This fact makes a look behind the scenes - as one gets it here - even more precious.

Although this BBC production of "Martin Chuzzlewit" from 1994 is not widely known, it is definitely a very good one. The characters are true to Dickens' novel, some of them being rather multi-layered, such as the bitter and twisted Jonas Chuzzlewit, very well portrayed by Keith Allen, or the desperate young Martin Chuzzlewit (Ben Walden), who from his very first scene casts a spell with his eyes and voice.

For those BBC drama collectors who consider buying the video: This is not as light as the fine Jane Austen film versions, but rather dark and gloomy. In my view this contributes to the film's attraction, and I can recommend "Martin Chuzzlewit" without hesitation.

A piece of advice concerning the videotape: Watch it as soon as you purchased it because there are some tapes on which visual noise appears every now and then. You might perhaps have to exchange it.

This movie tries to be faithful to the Russian original from 1972 (based on the story by Stanislaw Lem). The story is nearly the same - an astronaut is asked to find out what has happened on a space station that orbits the planet Solaris. As soon as he arrives on the station, he is confronted with unbelievable events that make him question reality. While Andrej Tarkowsky's version was a pure art film, with long shot sequences and a meditative touch, Sonderbergh speeds up the storytelling a lot. He focuses on the issue of a lost love, and gives the story a different outcome concerning that point. Nevertheless, he still uses some of Tarkowsky's filming techniques, like extended tracking shots and the direct glance of actors into the camera. If you like to see a film that puts up more questions than it answers, then see Solaris by Sonderbergh. If you approach it with an open mind, you'll enjoy it. Then you should give the original a try.