DVDs, 5/19.

By David Hudson on 05/19/2009

On the day that Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have given their masterclass in Cannes, the subject of Glenn Kenny's "Tuesday Morning Foreign Region DVD Report" for The Auteurs' Notebook is "Le silence de Lorna," which "represents a deepening of the Dardennes' perspective and methods. The story of an Albanian illegal immigrant in Belgium whose conscience forces her to reject the scam marriage schemes she's involved herself in so as to gain legal status, the film's suspense component is sharper than anything they've done before. Its political perspective is more acute. And finally, its intimations of the mystical are the most moving of anything they've yet done." More from Noel Megahey (DVD Times) and Gary W Tooze (DVD Beaver).

"Though it's ideal to start with [Seijun] Suzuki's later films and work your way backwards to his hallucinatory, not-for-all-tastes 'Branded to Kill' (his most recent, 'Princess Raccoon' and 'Pistol Opera,' are as much fun as Warner Bros cartoons), Kino International recently put out a few action films from the Nikkatsu Studio, which churned out fast-paced crime movies on low budgets." Jeremiah Kipp at the House Next Door: "The pleasure of 'Detective Bureau 2-3' [lies] in Suzuki's desire for entertainment at all costs."

More from Sean Axmaker, who has another recommendation for you at the Parallax View: "Before Meiko Kaji was the fearsome 'Female Prisoner Scorpion' and the lovely and deadly 'Lady Snowblood,' she was a fixture in Toei's colorful juvenile delinquent quickies and low-budget gangster movies." "Wandering Ginza Butterfly" is "a minor but fun piece of seventies genre cinema filled with loud suits, melodramatic complications and a camera that zooms in to hardened faces at dramatically predictable moments."

Meantime, Chris MaGee is looking forward to the August release of "Nikkatsu Noir."

"Slowly but surely, [Fritz Lang's] near-forgotten American films, many of which are either on par or superior to his work in Germany, are making their way to DVD," writes Cullen Gallagher for the L Magazine. "Just released today is his near-forgotten 'Man Hunt' (1941), an anti-Nazi thriller whose masterfully and subtly crafted suspense rises above any mere label of propaganda." Earlier: Dave Kehr in the New York Times.

"Long before there was Jack Nicholson in 'The Departed,' there was Robert Mitchum in 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle," writes Sam Allis in the Boston Globe. "This movie is not only the best crime movie ever made about Boston, it is the best movie ever made about Boston, period."

In Slant, Bill Weber adds that "Mitchum doesn't remotely overshadow the film's first-rate ensemble of character actors. While the screenplay somewhat streamlines the puzzle-like structure of George V Higgins's assured crime novel, director Peter Yates shifts from one uneasy conversation scene to another between players in Eddie's milieu: the detective (Richard Jordan) who extracts tips from a menacing Irish-wiseguy bartender (Peter Boyle) for $20 a week, a gang of bank robbers (led by Alex Rocco) whose fate will be tied to Coyle's, amateur buyers, and hopped-up suppliers."

"Yates' film," notes Michael Atkinson here at IFC, "is hardly a thrillathon in the car-chase days of
'Bullitt,' 'The French Connection,' 'The Parallax View' or 'The Seven-Ups.' But its elusive stasis is what makes it remarkable."

Earlier: Kent Jones and Glenn Kenny. And at Screengrab, Phil Nugent presents "That Guy! Special 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle' Edition."

Michael Atkinson also reviews "Voyage in Time," a "rare oddity for the Tarkovskyite, at times pretentious, but valuable as a casual (if not spontaneous) portrait of the man at work."

Steve-O has the Noir of the Week: Jacques Tourneur's "Out of the Past."

DVD roundups: Sean Axmaker, DVD Talk, Guru, Ambrose Heron, Mark Kermode (Observer), PopMatters and Michael Tully (Hammer to Nail).

[Photo: "Le silence de Lorna," Sony Pictures Classics, 2008]

Tags: Dardenne Brothers, Fritz Lang, Meiko Kaji, Nikkatsu, Peter Yates, Robert Mitchum, Seijun Suzuki