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This week's DVD reviews
By Steve Morrissey 16.04.09
Hunter S Thompson: found fame but lost his mojo
This week's DVD releases include Gonzo: The Life and Works of Dr Hunter S Thompson, Chocolat and The Red Riding Trilogy.
Gonzo: The Life and Works of Dr Hunter S Thompson
(Optimum, cert 15, retail)
Neither straight biog nor phantasmagorical evocation, a slightly cute portrait of the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas who found fame but lost his mojo.
Chocolat
(Artificial Eye, cert 15, retail)
From Claire Denis' 1988 Chocolat, about the sexual tension building between a French colonial madame and her Cameroon houseboy. Potent stuff.
Letter to Anna (Joiningthedots.tv, cert 15, retail)
Susan Sarandon revoices this German tribute to brave journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose persistent criticism of Putin led to her murder.
Ahlaam
(Dogwoof, cert 15, retail)
Amazing that it was even made at all, Mohamed Al-Daradji's debut, about three patients in a Baghdad asylum, is a meaty counterweight to Hollywood hand-wringing.
The Wind Will Carry Us
(Artificial Eye, cert U, retail)
From 1999, when Iranians films were hot, a scorcher from Abbas Kiarostami, a low-key meditation on life and death that's funny, accessible and beautiful too.
Box Set of the Week
The Red Riding Trilogy
(Optimum, cert 18, retail)
Like Life on Mars with the humour drained away, a trio of relentlessly grim yet gripping TV dramas about murder and police corruption in 1970s Yorkshire.
