Surviving Desire

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List Price: CDN$ 22.98 (CAD)
  • Lowest New Price: CDN$ 105.40
  • Lowest Used Price: CDN$ 50.25
  • Total New: 1
  • Total Used: 1
  • Total Collectible: 0
  • Total Refurbished: 0
  • Actor : Martin Donovan
  • Actor : Matt Malloy
  • Actor : Merritt Nelson
  • Actor : Julie Kessler
  • Actor : Mary B. Ward
  • Aspect Ratio : 1.33:1
  • Audience Rating : NR (Not Rated)
  • Binding : DVD
  • Creator : Hal Hartley
  • Director : Hal Hartley
  • EAN : 9780794201814
  • Format : Color
  • Format : DVD-Video
  • Format : NTSC
  • ISBN : 0794201814
  • Label : Paradox
  • Languages : Original Language: English
  • Manufacturer : Paradox
  • Number Of Discs : 1
  • Number Of Items : 1
  • Package Dimensions : 0.58 inches (Height) x 7.10 inches (Length) x 0.18 pounds (Weight) x 5.42 inches (Width)
  • Product Group : DVD
  • Publisher : Paradox
  • Region Code : 1
  • Release Date : 2002-10-01
  • Running Time : 60
  • SKU : 720917532127
  • Studio : Paradox
  • UPC : 720917532127

Surviving Desire is actually three short films, two of which--"Theory of Achievement" and "Ambition"--demonstrate writer-director Hal Hartley at his most quirky and abstract. They consist mostly of a series of dialogues, presented out of context, about things like Brooklyn real estate, nonlinear art, and contrasting male and female approaches to suicide. Fans of Hartley will enjoy them; newcomers will probably find them baffling. The third film, however--"Surviving Desire," from which the collection takes its title--is one of the most charming pieces Hartley has made. This hour-long story follows Jude (Martin Donovan), a college teacher obsessed with a single paragraph from The Brothers Karamazov, who's fallen in love with Sofie (Mary Ward), one of his students who's writing a short story about him. As the romance plays itself out, philosophical conversations turn into metaphysical Abbott and Costello routines, Jude breaks into spontaneous dance, a rock band in the street serenades a woman in her apartment window--and gradually a rueful and whimsical sense of life and love rises out of Hartley's erratic rhythms. Hartley is an idiosyncratic filmmaker who's not to everyone's taste; this short film is probably an ideal introduction to his work. Some of his movies seem to be working too hard for a sense of poetry and end up feeling stilted, but in "Surviving Desire" all of Hartley's devices take flight. --Bret Fetzer

- From Amazon.com


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