Claudine Spiteri

GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
A FILM BY LECH MAJEWSKI BASED ON HIS NOVEL
"METAPHYSICS"
Grand Prix 2004 Rome International Film Festival

"Stunning visuals and a sizzling performance by Claudine Spiteri: You're going to love this film and run out to see everything Majewski has directed."

V.A. Musetto New York Post

"This film puts to shame most other love stories in its honesty. Within a very philosophical framework, Majewski manages to tell an astonishingly human story. The staggering weirdness of being human - frail, material, dependent, and filled with ideas and aspirations that transcend everything - is the most surreal of all visions, and Majewski captures it. 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' is among the most powerful films made in years." Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post "There is magic in The Garden of Earthly Delights' intimate passion plays, which are filled with loving detail and are mounted without a hint of pretension. Each moment becomes achingly gorgeous, not least because of Claudine Spiteri's disarmingly straight- forward performance. The movie's philosophy is lucid and humane: Life is precious because it is short." R. Emmet Sweeney The Village Voice "Elegant… Lech Majewski's musicality is evident in the fresh and lively flow of images." Nathan Lee The New York Times "A luminous, highly erotic treatise on art, love and death." Andrea Gronvall Chicago Reader "Abiding intelligence!" Time Out, London

Release Details

Title: The Garden of Earthly Delights
Release Date: 08/12/2008
Label/Distributor: Kino
Rating: Unrated
Retail Price: $29.95
Genre: Drama Cast: Claudine Spiteri,Chris Nightingale
Director: Lech Majewski
Running Time: 103
DVD Video Options: Color,DVD-Video,NTSC,Subtitled,Widescreen
DVD Audio Options: French;Subtitled,English;Original Language
UPC Code: 738329059422

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS (2004) Working from his own novel Metaphysics, writer-director Lech Majewski (Glass Lips, Gospel According to Harry) crafts magic in The Garden of Earthly Delights intimate passion plays, which are filled with loving detail (Village Voice) and creates a luminous, highly erotic treatise on art, love and death (Chicago Reader). When London art historian Claudine (Claudine Spiteri) meets engineer Chris (Chris Nightingale), it is love and lust at first sight. But their spiritual and erotic connection is threatened by a devastating and deadly illness. Her remaining days on earth numbered, Claudine chooses to fan the flames of her obsession with Hieronymus Bosch by taking her lover on a trip to Venice, where the artist s work becomes the background for their physical passion and emotional discovery. Like Dante s Beatrice, Claudine becomes Chris guide into a labyrinth of sensuality, love, death, regret and redemption.

Special Features:
- Feature-length Audio Commentary by Lech Majewski
- Biography of Lech Majewski
- Optional French Subtitles
- Stills Gallery

The Garden of Earthly Delights

By Ed Grant -- Video Business, 8/4/2008

KINO
Street: Aug. 12
Prebook: now
> Thinking person’s love story, replete with beautiful Venetian scenery.

A beautifully constructed tragic romance, Garden of Earthly Delights chronicles the doomed affair between two Brits in Venice, an engineer (Chris Nightingale) who compulsively records everything that happens to him and a terminally ill art historian (Claudine Spiteri). Adapting from his own novel, filmmaker Lech Majewski deftly avoids the clichés that are attendant to “fatal” romances, concentrating instead on the engineer’s camcorder compulsion and his girlfriend’s attempts to recreate tableaux from the Hieronymous Bosch painting that supplies the film’s title. The result is a film that will satisfy viewers looking for a sad love story as well as those who like their romances a bit more … eccentric. Kino is releasing Garden with three other previously unreleased Majewski titles, including Gospel According to Harry, starring Viggo Mortensen.

Shelf Talk: Majewski’s name isn’t immediately recognizable, even to arthouse aficionados, but his work deserves a push to fans of Peter Greenaway, Wong Kar-Wai and other modern visionaries. Though constructed in a willfully self-conscious manner (the entire film is comprised of the engineer’s videos of he and lady-love), the “alienation” technique actually serves to bring viewers further into the story, making Garden an excellent choice for brainy folk looking for a good cry.

Drama, color, NR (mature themes, sexual situations), 104 min., DVD $29.95
Extras: director’s commentary
Director: Lech Majewski
First Run: DVD premiere