For August, seven new films are being introduced to the closet, where a double feature is getting the re-edition treatment. While Vittorio De Sica, Kon Ichikawa, and Edward Yang are familiar names, an Egyptian legend, two independent films, and a contemporary Italian war drama are added to the growing collection of gems. It continues (with September’s titles also being an enlarged growth of entries) to be a pot of gold for cinephiles as Criterion continues to expand a lot in bringing in and re-establishing entries for the 4K age. Here are the August inductees.
Shoeshine (1946)
An early Oscar winner for Best International Feature, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist fable of young boys struggling in post-war Italy is a triumph of the country’s growing cinematic status following the war. The story of two boys who want to buy a horse and go to desperate lengths that land them in jail. Their friendship is tested, as they put on a show of youthful performances in the face of real-life pain that De Sica would continue to produce with later films, Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D.
The Burmese Harp (1956) / Fires On The Plain (1959)
Director Kon Ichikawa has two of his films getting the re-edition treatment, both of them meditating on the horrors of war from the Japanese point of view. In The Burmese Harp, a soldier believed to be dead wanders off to join a group of Buddhist monks to find inner peace. Fires on the Plain tracks a group of soldiers stranded in the Philippines towards the end of the war, weary of dying as well as finding themselves on the losing end of a fight that was worth nothing. Bleak and violent for their time, both films have become regarded as masterpieces in Japan’s post-war analysis and remain staples of the country’s achievement of modern storytelling.
Cairo Station (1958)
It’s about time that Youssef Chahine, arguably the greatest director to come from Egypt, breaks into the Criterion Collection with one of his best films. Playing the role of an obsessed seller at the train station, Chahine follows a vendor (Hind Rostom) and pushes hard to get her affection. However, he pushes his obsession to the limit, which endangers others in this brilliant neorealistic drama as part of the post-Egyptian Revolution progress.
A Confucian Confusion / Mahjong: Two Films by Edward Yang (1994/1996)
Edward Yang, one of Taiwan’s best filmmakers, transitioned from heavy dramas (A Bright Summer Day) into making comedies about families in a modern world and trying to make sense of it. In Confusion, a group of young professionals who cross paths and find challenges at work and in love, as Taiwan becomes part of the materialist world. Mahjong is a dark comedy about a group of con artists who get caught in the underworld mystery of a missing businessman and a foreign tourist who is caught in the middle. These two films delve into the modern era, exploring the challenges of shifting values in a freer world.
Compensation (1999)
Two stories in Chicago, one in 1910 and the other in 1990, follow an African-American couple with a deaf woman and a non-deaf man who deal with the difficulties of communication and the tragic turmoil that surrounds them. Criterion has brought back to life this underseen, innovative story from director Zeinabu irene Davis, which took years to get released after being filmed. Thankfully, in being rediscovered, it joined the Library of Congress National Film Registry last year, making sure more people will go see it.
Saving Face (2004)
A young lesbian couple (Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen) find themselves challenged when one of them has their mother, a traditional Chinese woman (Joan Chen), move in with them after learning she is pregnant. The barriers of tradition burst open as writer/director Alice Wu made her feature debut with a film based on her life, and blends rom-com with the conflicts of generations in an Asian-American setting, something rarely seen at the time. Good thing Wu refused to bow to studio concessions that the characters be White and not spoken in Mandarin.
Vermiglio (2024)
In an Italian village within the mountains during World War II, a soldier fleeing arrives and changes the lives of a family who take him in. Time passes, and the soldier’s growing love for the eldest daughter continues until the end of the war, when a shocking revelation is made about the man they never really knew. Maura Delpero writes and directs this personal tale, grounded in her family’s history of coming from a similar area, that puts the traditions of village life in a bind compared to the rest of the modern Italian world, and what happens when a new era begins.
