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DVDs of the week
Metro 08.04.08
Poignant: The Darjeeling Limited
Tense: Rescue Dawn
Gleeful: Pulling
Pulse-raising: The quantic Soul Orchestra
Punchy: The Magic Flute
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Three messed-up brothers get lost in India in The Darjeeling Limited, the nail-biting Rescue Dawn will have you throwing chips at the screen and Pulling mocks singledom.
DVD OF THE WEEK
The Darjeeling Limited
Twentieth Century Fox, 15, £19.99
****
Dysfunctional families are something of a speciality for Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) and the three painkiller-popping, thoroughly messed-up brothers in The Darjeeling Limited are some of his greatest characters. The trio haven't seen each other since the death of their father a year ago; encouraged by some minor bullying on the part of Francis (Owen Wilson), they embark on a bonding 'spiritual journey' through India.
The country itself plays second fiddle to the siblings, merely providing a pretty, earthy background to show up their ugly, materialistic tendencies. It's clear from the off they're not going to reach any spiritual epiphanies. Instead, we're treated to a witty reflection of family life where the boys bicker (in the inconsequential/ bitterly important way that only relatives can) and keep silly secrets from each other. For added humour, Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) also fitfully rebel against their itinerary-wielding, control-freak eldest brother. The cast are consistently brilliant as charming lost boys and that, together with the wryly poignant tone at which Anderson excels, makes the film's lack of depth entirely forgivable.
Extras: Making-of featurette.
Zena Alkayat
Rescue Dawn
Pathe, 12, £19.99
****
If you thought Christian Bale's starvation levels in The Machinist were scary enough, his size minus 00 turn here will have you throwing chips… at the screen. It's based on the real-life triumph against extreme adversity of Dieter Dengler, a likeable US pilot shot down on his first Vietnam War mission in 1966 who became the only American to ever break out of a POW camp in the Laotian jungle.
Tense isn't the word for this truly nail-biting escape adventure. The hollow-stomached cast draw you into their world of tiny, life-sustaining triumphs so completely you can almost taste each grain of precious rice they hoard. And there's no flabby sentiment.
A loyal hero you instinctively root for, Dieter is familiar territory for eccentric and legendary director Werner Herzog, who loves a monomaniacal individual living only to achieve their dream. The same could be said for Bale, whose moving, bare-bones performance is intensely committed, if to the point of committable.
Extras: Characteristically priceless commentary by Herzog, makingof documentary, deleted scenes.
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
Pulling - Series One
BBC DVD, 15, £19.99
****
BBC3 viewers must have rubbed their hands in glee when they got first dibs on Pulling – a terrific and seriously well-acted tragi-sitcom that gives multi-channel telly a good name. Now that it's on DVD everyone can savour the middle-class ennui that has laid siege to Penge-dwelling flatmates Donna (co-writer Sharon Horgan), Louise (Rebekah Staton) and Karen (Tanya Franks).
Donna's a strait-laced type who kicks off episode one by dumping her dozy fiancé Karl the day before their wedding. The rest of the series is a brutally funny reality check on her dreams of free singledom: well-meaning but weird Dawn French-alike Louise keeps stalking eligible young men, gobby Karen is a stupendously hideous portrayal of sex mania and alcoholism, while Karl gains ever more sympathy by spiralling into lovelorn depression. Altogether, Pulling's multilayered sense of desperation makes for a heady cocktail that's far too addictive for its own good.
Extras: Commentaries, cast and crew interviews, behind the scenes and deleted scenes.
Sharon Lougher
The Quantic Soul Orchestra & Spanky Wilson: Live In Paris
Tru Thoughts, no cert, £5.99
****
There's nothing fancy about this recording of a Quantic Soul Orchestra gig at cosy Parisian venue La Maroquinerie – but with legendary soul singer Spanky Wilson at the helm, that's just fine. Bonjour, y'all,' drawls the charismatic Philadelphian, who leads Will Holland and his band through a blistering, sweaty workout of their collaborative album I'm Thankful, plus her well-known covers of Bill Withers's Kissing My Love and Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love (the rousing ~ nale). Wilson good-humouredly claims: I'm killin' my old ass' trying to keep up with the energetic Quantic musicians; in fact, it often looks the other way round. Theatrics come courtesy of Stephen Large, literally pounding on his Hammond, and QSO's Latin-style, horn-drenched interlude is a pulse-raising treat. But, really, this is Wilson's show: her belting delivery and raw emotion mean all eyes are on her.
Extras: None.
Siobhan Murphy
The Magic Flute
Revolver Entertainment, PG, £19.99
***
Kenneth Branagh's English-language film of Mozart's opera is a mix of the punchy and the pedestrian. Some moments are visually stunning – Papageno in an electric-green meadow jumping into a pair of disembodied red lips is a wonderfully trippy image – but there are also stretches where Branagh substitutes visual bombast for insight. Sarastro's Gothic CGI castle seems like an empty pastiche of The Lord Of The Rings films, and some of the real' sets feel cumbersome.
Branagh sets the story during a hallucinogenic version of World War I, using the trenches as a metaphor for the battle between day/night and good/evil. It's a promising idea not always supported by enough musical perceptivity – a common fault with tyro opera directors.
Tenor Joseph Kaiser is a pin-up Tamino with a voice to match and Lyubov Petrova is a superb Queen Of The Night but the other performances are just middling.
Extras: Making-of documentary, cast interviews.
Warwick Thompson
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