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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

If boutique home-video distribution trends in the same upward direction in 2018, we’ll all need personal assistants just to keep track.

The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017
Photo: CBS Home Entertainment

In 2017, keeping up with all of the notable Blu-ray and DVD premieres became a full-time job. The Criterion Collection capped one of their most exciting and prolific years to date with the release of 100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912-2012, a box set for the ages that spans 53 films and 41 editions of the Olympic Games. Arrow Video officially cemented its status as a titan of home-video restoration and distribution with a wide array of discs—many released under their Arrow Academy label—devoted to bringing genre works to greater prominence. And elsewhere, smaller distributors like Kino Lorber, Olive Films, Flicker Alley, Twilight Time, Cohen Media Group, and Blue Underground, when not giving a necessary makeover to classics already in their impressive libraries, brought under-heralded films by our greatest auteurs and criminally unseen works by cinema’s pioneers to home video for the first time. (Our only regret before compiling our list of the year’s best Blu-ray and DVD releases is that we didn’t get a chance to check out Synapse Films’s new 4K restoration and steelbook Blu-ray of Suspiria, which sold out mere days after it became available for preorders online.) If the booming industry of boutique home-video distribution trends in the same upward direction in 2018, we’ll all need personal assistants just to keep track. Clayton Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912-2012, The Criterion Collection

Criterion’s output has come to be known over the years as “film school in a box” by fans and filmmakers alike. With 100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912-2012, the distributor achieves a new milestone with what we might call the “film archive in a box.” That’s essentially what this outrageously comprehensive set of 53 films across 32 Blu-ray discs offers to cinephiles and fans of the Olympic Games alike. Some of the titles, like parts one and two of Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 ode to German athletic excellence, are as essential to film history as they are to charting the history of the competition itself. Other lesser known works, such as 1928’s The White Stadium, are marvels of late-silent era filmmaking, employing elliptical editing rather than the newsreel style more common to several of the earlier compilation films in this collection. The set also has 4K scans of Kon Ichikawa 1966 classic Tokyo Olympiad, previously released on DVD by Criterion, and 1972’s Visions of Eight, an omnibus documentary of moments and footage shot by eight different directors, including Milos Forman and Arthur Penn. There’s also Marathon by the great Carlos Saura from 1993, and nine features directed by Bud Greenspan from 1986 to 2006. The collection abounds in not only samples of what peak athleticism was thought to look like over the course of a century, but in displays of various conceptions of bodies in motion and coming into being as compelling subjects for the moving image. These films are no mere travelogues; they reveal filmmakers from over a dozen countries grappling with matters of will, endurance, and mortality. One wonders just how Criterion will ever top this set. In terms more familiar to the Olympiad, let’s call it their record time. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Barry Lyndon, The Criterion Collection

Really, for fans of Barry Lyndon, the only thing that matters in the entire history of home video is that Criterion’s presentation of the most visually stunning film ever committed to celluloid is also among the most jaw-dropping transfers ever encoded onto Blu-ray. In short, it is. Of course, the famed candle-lit card games are impressive showpieces, with an astonishing luminosity amid inky darks. But even more impressive are the exteriors, where the shadows of clouds slicing across the countryside are flawlessly represented. There isn’t a shot from this 4K scan that doesn’t sing in some way or another, be it the pallid visage of Lady Lyndon as her insular suitor begins his downward spiral, or the play of light through the window slits in the final duel sequence. Normally, we’d dock a point any time a Criterion set doesn’t include a commentary track, but it seems clear here that a conscious decision was made to ensure the disc containing the main feature had as little else on it as possible, to devote every available byte to presenting the film’s images alone. Ergo, a pass. There’s more than enough “commentary” on the film from the second disc’s trove of documentaries, featurettes, and interview segments. Kubrick fanatics will probably be the most gladdened at the participation of critic and Kubrick: The Definitive Edition author Michel Ciment, who goes full-tilt film studies in his 20-minute conversation, picking Barry Lyndon apart like a mechanic dismantling an engine to show how it works, and its place of importance within the director’s body of work. Eric Henderson


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

The Before Trilogy, The Criterion Collection

“O let not Time deceive you,” advises the poet W. H. Auden in “As I Walked Out One Evening,” “you cannot conquer time.” These lines, invoked with youthful diffidence in Before Sunrise, could stand as fitting epigraph to Richard Linklater’s entire Before trilogy. Linklater’s preoccupation with temporality intensifies with each subsequent film in the trilogy, so that time itself becomes both message and medium, the principal subject matter of the films as well as the basic building blocks of their construction. The nine-year gap between films allows Linklater and his leads, with whom he collaborates closely on the scripts, to zero in on crucial milestones in the lives of Céline (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke): the first flush of true connection in Before Sunrise, reunion after long separation in Before Sunset, the vicissitudes of aging and domestic discord in Before Midnight. Criterion presents Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in newly restored 2K transfers. Before Sunrise benefits the most from the overhaul, with major improvements to clarity and visibility evident in its key nighttime sequences. Across the board, colors are vivid and fine details register strongly. The scores, always sparingly and subtly employed, sound excellent. Criterion loads their three-disc set with a comprehensive combination of new and archival materials. What’s remarkable about this assemblage is that—though many of the extras feature Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy talking about one or all of the films—there’s very little in the way of exasperating repetition. Budd Wilkins


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Arrow Video

The image provides a sexual marriage of observational intellectualism and fevered neuroses. Colors run either neon hot, like the yellows, reds, and blues, or cool and soft, such as the browns that dominate the hero’s apartment, which is, until the third act, a safe spot away from the killer’s machinations. There’s an element of grain in the image, though it’s appealing to the eye and truthful to the nature of the film, which, like many gialli, derives its beauty in part from the opposition between lighting that appears to be found and that which is clearly and expressionistically contrived. The soundtracks are similarly detailed, informing Ennio Morricone’s eerie score with a notably new lushness. Meanwhile, the supplements collection recalls that of Arrow Video’s superb edition of Blood and Black Lace from last year. As in that package, these featurettes collectively elaborate on the giallo at large and on The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’s specific place in the genre. There’s plenty of overlapping information, though even this tendency reveals how certain events can be colored by the perspective of a given individual. The new audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films, serves as an efficient one-stop shop for fans looking to brush up on the history of the film’s genesis. Chuck Bowen

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Daughters of the Dust, Cohen Media Group

This is a rapturously beautiful and important restoration, complemented by a complex soundtrack that delicately and coherently balances the noises of the film’s island setting with the on-screen dialogue with two voiceover narrations with John Barnes’s score, which is, itself, an intricate tapestry of the musical heritages of many cultures. And throughout the new interviews and audio commentary that were recorded in celebration of Daughters of the Dust’s 25th anniversary, director Julie Dash asserts and reasserts her aim to “reimagine history,” broadening our conception of American slavery to accommodate images that aren’t of chains, whippings, and so forth. Across the supplements, Dash discusses the details she chose for her film, which were uncovered from considerable research and are often unacknowledged by pop culture. These supplements are valuable as an orienting primer for viewers who’re barely acquainted with the Gullah community of the narrative, and there’s no weak link among the featurettes. Dash is passionate and erudite throughout, while cinematographer Arthur Jafa offers technical context of the film’s production, as well as thoughts on its thematic resonance and cultural importance. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Deathdream, Blue Underground

Bob Clark’s Deathdream goes in the opposite direction of peddling cool, showing how a pair of designer shades can only momentarily shield the irreparable physical and psychological scars of war. The film likens the warmongering mindset of American life to pestilence, one that returns in cycles to decimate each new generation of idealistic young men. Blue Underground has produced what’s likely the ultimate Blu-ray edition of this cult classic, with a 2K restoration and enough extras to satisfy even the film’s most diehard proponents. The 2K scan gives the film more image detail than ever before on home video, with every color and object within the Brooks’s household sharp and wholly visible. The DTS-HD monaural soundtrack won’t shake your speakers, but it successfully balances dialogue and score without any audible defects or drops in volume. With two commentaries and a host of other supplements, this will likely remain the definitive release of Deathdream for the foreseeable future. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology, Flicker Alley

In 2015, Flicker Alley released Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film, 1920-1970, a 36-film set sampling 50 years of films that have, by and large, been difficult or even impossible to see outside of a museum screening. Itself a masterwork of film preservation and restoration, the set’s success (it was partially funded by a Kickstarter campaign) paved the way for Flicker Alley’s latest gift to film history, Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology. There are 24 films from some of cinema’s greatest women filmmakers, including Alice Guy Blaché, Germaine Dulac, Lois Weber, and Lotte Reiniger. The earliest film stretches back to Blaché’s 1902 short Les Chiens Savants and reaches up to Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, from 1943. Many of these films, which have been beautifully restored, are making their debuts on North American home video. Expertly packaged, and containing an insightful commentary by scholar Shelley Stamp and an essay by film historian Kate Saccone, the six-disc set includes all films on both Blu-ray and DVD, and should be a staple of every cinephile’s home-video collection. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Fritz Lang: The Silent Films, Kino Lorber

Among the greatest of all filmmakers, Fritz Lang helped to pioneer genres, narrative tropes, and formal devices that are now taken for granted as basic mechanisms of cinema. Lang’s silent films are a significant portion of a medium’s bedrock, then, which Kino has collected into an elaborately beautiful box set, reminding audiences of the filmmaker’s visionary sense of storytelling and grasp of social neuroses. Destiny features sophisticated flashbacks, and surreal imagery that would profoundly influence directors such as Ingmar Bergman and Luis Buñuel. Metropolis invented the modern sci-fi film, and Dr. Mabuse the Gambler has an epic scope and a politically textured narrative that anticipated the contemporary crime film decades before its emergence. Image quality is variable in these restorations—particularly in presenting Lang’s experimental use of colored templates—but even the worst portions are vibrant, with sturdy foreground detail and sense of depth. The soundtracks are pristine, and have in many cases been re-recorded, with notes providing context as to each film’s restoration, including documentation of the locations where resources were discovered. A book with essays, timelines, and liner descriptions provides further historical portraiture, which is complemented by making-of documentaries and audio commentaries. An exhilarating and invaluable collection. Bowen

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Funeral Parade of Roses, Cinelicious

One of the cornerstones of Japan’s avant-garde Art Theatre Guild, Funeral Parade of Roses combines ornately blocked and lit melodrama, cinema-verité style documentary footage, and experimental interludes. Cinelicious’s 4K restoration impresses with its ability to handle the film’s wild leaps in cinematographic contrast without sacrificing the image’s finest details, from the smallest of hairs on a person’s arm to all the refractions of light on sequin gowns. It’s enough reward to finally have the film on home video, but Cinelicious goes one further by including a host of Toshio Matsumoto’s experimental short films, which provide a fascinating timeline of the evolution of his aesthetic talent and intellectual curiosity. Jake Cole


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

George A. Romero: Between Night and Dawn, Arrow Video

Arrow’s box set stands as a fitting memorial to George Romero, who passed away in July, as well as a testament to the diversity of his filmmaking interests. In the wake of Night of the Living Dead’s phenomenal success, Romero attempted to move away from straight horror by making a romantic comedy with serious social undertones (There’s Always Vanilla) and a suburban satire with surreal occult overtones (Season of the Witch), before finally returning to the genre fold with The Crazies, a brutal and relentlessly downbeat portrait of social collapse in a rural Pennsylvania town. All three titles receive new transfers, two of them (Season of the Witch and The Crazies) 4K scans from original camera negatives. Not surprisingly, those transfers represent impressive upgrades, while There’s Always Vanilla looks a bit sharper than previous incarnations but still suffers from color fading and generalized print damage (as discussed in the insert booklet). Each title (on both Blu-ray and DVD) is housed in its own case adorned with reversible artwork. All three films come with information-laden commentary tracks from Travis Crawford, as well as location galleries with optional commentary from Romero scholar Lawrence DeVincentz. There are archival pieces carried over from earlier releases on Romero’s “lost” films and Season of the Witch’s Jan White. Arrow supplies some terrific new bonus materials, including a making-of featurette on There’s Always Vanilla, almost an hour’s worth of interviews with cult actress Lynn Lowry, and a few other nuggets. Arguably the best single supplement on the set is a conversation between Romero and Guillermo del Toro from 2016 that covers a lot of ground in just under an hour. Wilkins


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Kiju Yoshida: Love + Anarchy, Arrow Video

Compared to filmmakers like Nagisa Oshima or Shôhei Imamura, Kiju Yoshida remains a lesser-known light of the Japanese New Wave, a lamentable state of affairs that this box set from Arrow Video should go a long way toward rectifying. The three films included in Love + Anarchism form a loose-knit trilogy on political themes, investigating the ramifications of different political ideologies—anarchism, communism, and a particularly virulent strain of nationalism—on key moments in 20th-century Japanese history. The director’s cut of Eros + Massacre hews closer to Yoshida’s stated intention to have DP Motokichi Hasegawa push the visuals into the realm of overexposure, where blown-out whites predominate and often threaten to overwhelm the imagery. Heroic Purgatory is the cleanest and clearest of the three films, largely (but not entirely) free of those blown whites. Contrast is well-balanced and details register strongly. Ichiyanagi’s haunting score invokes an ethereal female chorus that wails plaintively. Coup d’Etat looks thick by comparison, with contrast levels a bit off, leaving some black crush and overall fuzziness. David Desser’s select-scene commentaries for all three films are unsurprisingly strong when it comes to conveying cultural and political information, and pointing out Yoshida’s unconventional directorial techniques, but at times he devolves into blandly (and sometimes confusedly) restating what’s happening on screen. The documentary on Eros + Massacre provides plenty of context from French film critics Mathieu Capel and Jean Douchet, and, even better, lets Yoshida lay out his own philosophical and political intentions for the film, as do Yoshida’s separate introductions to Heroic Purgatory and Coup d’Etat. Wilkins


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Kiss of Death, Twilight Time

On Twilight Time’s Blu-ray of Kiss of Death, an attractive grit pervades the image, lending it a rough, evocative texture. The soundtrack is consistently pristine, handling the high notes (such as the music of a piano) with particular subtlety, though the diegetic effects are also vividly handled, such as the click-clacking sound of an ill-fated women plummeting down a flight of stairs. One of the great, reliable pleasures of Twilight Time discs are the commentaries with film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman, and their discussion of Kiss of Death is characteristically excellent. Early on, Kirgo proposes that WWII veterans might have re-entered their country feeling like fugitives despite doing what their government asked of them, and that film noirs might’ve been subconsciously wrestling with this guilt in their endless enmeshing of veterans and criminals. Kirgo refines this sentiment throughout the commentary, casually detonating the myth of post-war America as a time of unsullied excitement, reminding viewers of HUAC and unemployment anxieties, among other things. Kirgo and Redman are also in fine form discussing the film directly, with Kirgo memorably celebrating Victor Mature’s visage as recalling a Greek statue. The commentary with film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver is also a must-listen, plumbing the film’s religious subtext, the relationship between Mature and director Henry Hathaway, and Hathaway’s underrated ability to marshal a variety of differing acting styles and energies into a singular, coherent tonality. The original theatrical trailer is the only other feature on this disc, but the commentaries more than compensate. Bowen

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

The Last Laugh, Kino Lorber

Even without considering the laborious history of The Last Laugh’s restoration, this transfer is extraordinary. Yes, there are minor lines and blips in the image, but clarity and depth are rich and prismatic, honoring the film’s obsession with worlds within worlds. The blacks are fulsome, particularly in the poetic city backdrops, and the whites are sharp, as evinced by the impeccable crystal sheen of the film’s mirrors, windows, and polished surfaces. There’s also a new soundtrack, featuring a musical score by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, and an older mix, with the original 1924 score by Giuseppe Becce, as orchestrated by Detlev Glanert in 2003. In terms of aural dimension and nuance, these mixes are equally formidable, boasting robust soundstages with distinguished instrumentation. Meanwhile, the supplements offer a coherent portrait of the confusing story of The Last Laugh’s creation and restoration. In short, three versions of the film were prepared for a German release, an American release, and general international exhibition, respectively. A making-of documentary and an audio commentary by film scholar Noah Isenberg respectively flesh out the context of The Last Laugh’s impact on cinema, and an unrestored import version of the film allows viewers to see how it subtly changed shape between cuts. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

The Marseille Trilogy, The Criterion Collection

The films in Marcel Pagnol’s The Marseille Trilogy were both critical and commercial successes; each film was the biggest grosser in France during its initial year of release. However, until the Criterion Collection’s robust Blu-ray release this year, these films had only been previously released on North American home video in unrestored versions. A meticulous restoration using state-of-the-art technology ensures that every frame of The Marseille Trilogy beams with a radiance that could only have been matched by seeing the films during their initial run. As overseen by Nicolas Pagnol, who used a crowdfunding campaign to raise over half of the necessary restoration funds, the transfers show no evidence of dirt or damage. This release is also abundant in supplements, so much so that it may warrant an entire day just to get through them all. Overall, this Criterion box set proves worthy of Marcel Pagnol’s inimitable wit and style. Dillard


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Othello, The Criterion Collection

Criterion refurbishes two versions of Orson Welles’s glorious Othello, which were prepared for exhibition in different portions of the world. Most remarkable is the general softness of the whites of the image, which had a shrill tendency in prior home-video editions. Blacks are rich and robust, bringing out the prismatic intricacy of the compositions, in part with pristine background clarity. The soundtrack layers natural sounds with heightened noises. The dialogue is nowhere near in sync in either version, which is truthful to the films as they were originally produced and presented. To “fix” this problem, which deepens the film’s sense of existential dislocation, would be to commit a creative atrocity. And the rough unruliness of Orson Welles’s production methods—his willingness to be unguarded and unvarnished—is a key to his art, as an extensive supplements package reveals. Commentaries, short films, and documentaries examine Othello from a variety of vantage points, elaborating on its timeless vitality. Particularly notable is a new interview with Ayanna Thompson, author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America. Thompson discusses Welles’s blackface, comparing it to minstrelsy and to the various other interpretations of the character. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Stalker, The Criterion Collection

In the past, Stalker has always been done a disservice on home video, plagued by muddy transfers that have washed out the sepia tinting of its early scenes and muted the hyperreal colors of its phantasmagoric Zone. Criterion’s Blu-ray gives the film the red-carpet treatment that it deserves, meticulously restoring it to revelatory effect. The early, pre-Zone scenes shimmer so brilliantly that each frame almost looks etched in bronze, to the point that even images of fetid, stagnant water look beautiful. In the Zone, verdant fields pop in various shades of green, and close-ups of the three men searching for the Zone’s legendary wish-fulfillment room contain reveal heretofore unseen textures on each man’s face. The disc includes archival and newly recorded interviews with members of the crew, and nearly as interesting is a deeply personal analysis from author Geoff Dwyer, whose intimate discussion befits a film predicated on confronting our innermost desires. Cole

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The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, The Criterion Collection

This restoration is so beautiful that it refines one’s estimation of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. The colors that David Lynch often favors—rose red, blue-velvet blue, auburn, and deep black—look as lush here as they do in any other Lynch film. Image texture is extravagantly detailed from the ridiculous woodwork of a redneck sheriff’s office to the sensual and heartbreaking skin tones of Laura Palmer and Ronette Pulaski. And Laura’s eyes have never been so pristine and bottomless. Two soundtracks have been included, and, if you have the speakers, the 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio surround is a knockout that suggests an immersive concerto in hell. Criterion’s inclusion of “The Missing Pieces” in the supplements package is good news for those who already own a box set of Twin Peaks and aren’t ready to double dip with Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery, where this material originally surfaced in 2014. “The Missing Pieces” amounts to more than 90 minutes of extended and deleted scenes from Fire Walk with Me, as Lynch supervised the editing of this supplement himself, sculpting it into a sketchbook that’s pure Lynch. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series, CBS Home Entertainment

The thorniest nostalgia trip in the history of television has been outfitted with a gorgeous and painstaking transfer. The famous Twin Peaks landscapes are lush in impressionist color, especially the browns and greens, with a bit of softness to emphasize a sense of subjectivity. The industrial landscapes are pitilessly sharp and clean, with strong blacks and a subtle medley of silver and auburn hues. The black-and-white sequences boast vibrant shadows, and micro textures—faces, clothing, household objects, and magical talismans—are painstakingly specific. The soundtrack often pushes the Lynchian sounds—electrical hums, mechanic drones, windy whistling—to the background, while Angelo Badalamenti’s melancholic score usually occupies the foreground with its light, airy notes. The big surprise of this sprawling and beautifully designed package, however, is “Impressions: Journey Behind the Scenes of Twin Peaks,” a five-hour exploration of The Return’s filming, following David Lynch as he weathers the ups and downs of directing a massive project. Obviously this intoxicating and occasionally hallucinatory documentary—which has been split into 10 episodes, resembling a series of its own—has been managed by Lynch to cultivate his reputation as an eccentric, unconventionally sexy aesthete, though it’s also a vivid portrait of filmmaking. The physical toils of directing, which requires the making of countless impromptu decisions on a daily basis, have rarely been so exactingly elucidated. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Vampyr, The Criterion Collection

As outlined in the Blu-ray’s supplements package, it’s a miracle that Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr exists at all, considering the many different versions and lack of master materials. Regardless, this print is amazing both in sight and sound, benefitting in part from the fact that Vampyr is one of those films that improves with imperfection, as the occasional glaring white or softness of image only intensifies its primordially dreamy power. Blacks are quite strong, and image texture is extraordinary, as illustrated by facial close-ups and surfaces of furniture, paintings, and props, in which one can discern minute patterns and flaws. The soundtrack is intricately layered, offering a dreamscape in which diegetic pitter-patter merges with the eerie score and the potentially imagined sounds of screaming and rattling. Criterion has kept the same supplements that were assembled for Vampyr’s DVD release in 2008, but they remain a terrific assortment of discussions and essays that offers wide-ranging context pertaining to the film’s creation, reception, legacy, and eventual restoration. Film scholar Tony Rayns’s dryly amusing audio commentary covers the biographies of many pivotal players, describing Vampyr’s place in the blossoming horror wave of the 1930s and elaborating on the intricate camera movements and sense of dislocation they foster. Rayns possesses the unusual ability to discuss a film’s formal qualities without lapsing into theoretical tedium. Bowen


The 20 Best DVDs and Blu-rays of 2017

Walerian Borowczyk on Blu-ray, Arrow Video and Olive Films

Two films by the iconoclastic postwar-era Polish director Walerian Borowczyk—the blasphemously graphic Buñuelian shocker The Beast and the oddly elegiac medieval sex odyssey Immoral Tales—received long-overdue spotlights when they were digitally restored and screened nationally a few years ago. In 2017, Arrow Academy and Olive Films took the baton on Borowczyk’s reclamation by releasing several more of his films in a remarkable string of lovingly assembled packages. Arrow’s The Walerian Borowczyk Short Films Collection provides a wide-ranging survey of his short-form work, much of it made in the 1960s and expanding on the era’s bold hybrids of live-action and stop-motion animation with a jagged, rickety grace that evokes Jan Švankmajer and inspired early Terry Gilliam. The apotheosis of that style was Borowczyk’s first feature, The Theater of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal (Olive), a line-drawn phantasmagoria that traces the surreal parasitic coexistence of its titular duo, thus introducing the recurring Borowczyk trait of relationships that function only through animalistic passion. His allegorical live-action follow-up, Goto, The Island of Love (Olive), takes that trope and stifles it under authoritarian gloom, forbidding frontal compositions and deep chiaroscuro. Such austerity, however, was anomalous in Borowczyk’s career; Blanche (Olive) and Story of Sin (Arrow), for instance, switch to color in their attacks on bourgeois piety and dogmatic regimes and dredge up expressionistic outbursts of carnal yearning along the way. All the films get stunningly sharp transfers, and most are accompanied by video interviews, introductions, and commentary tracks that go a long way toward elucidating—though never overanalyzing—the riotously imaginative, fearlessly political mind of this inimitable provocateur. Carson Lund

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