Filters Showing 2 releases
Recently moved to upstate New York from the comfort of their Vermont homestead, the Benjamin Steed family makes their way into the established social structure of Palmyra. In their attmpt to settle peacefully into the new community, they discover that the help they have hired to clear their land is at the center of a religious controversy - a controvery that threatens to tear the family apart. As two of the Steed brothers contend for the favor of a wealthy merchant's daughter, they find themselves on opposite sides of the religous question. Although the family struggles to smooth the contention, they soon face deeper issues of family loyalty and the pursuit of truth.
The film follows the structure of Dante's masterwork, beginning in Hell. In Godard's hands, hell becomes a devastating but beautifully collected montage of war images. War - be it World War II, Algeria, Vietnam, Israel or Bosnia - is a constant in his films, but never has he pieced together an assemblage of such poetic power. Purgatory finds Godard himself in Sarajevo, where he has been invited to attend a European literary conference with other artists and writers. Here we are introduced to a young French-Jewish journalist based in Israel who has come to Sarajevo to see a place "where reconciliation is possible." Paradise is the most enigmatic section of the film, where the journalist finds peace by the water on a small beach guarded by American Marines.
