GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
A FILM BY LECH MAJEWSKI BASED ON HIS NOVEL
"METAPHYSICS"
Grand Prix 2004 Rome International Film Festival
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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
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Release Details
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
KINOStreet: 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 $29.95Extras: director’s commentary
Director: Lech Majewski
First Run: DVD premiere
4 comments:
Ms. Spiteri, I´ve just saw "The garden..". The intensity of your performance shocked me, as few films had done so in recent times. You´re an powerful an yet, delicate actress, as well as a beutiful, very, presence on the screen (and, I´m sure of it,in the real world). I hope to see more of your work soon. Greetings from Mexico City.
Thank you for your feedback - it means a lot to me. Actually I am quite proud of how many people's lives have been quite profoundly effected by this film - it certainly has a place in this world.
Congratulations for his intense performances in the beautiful "Garden of Earthly Delights"!
One of my favorite films, directed by one of the greatest visionary of cinema today.
is really a shame that in my country, Italy, this director did not know hardly anyone, but unfortunately this is the fate of authors like him and such films as "The Garden ..." But the most absurd and that although you have shot in Venice (I live 60 km), yet there is an Italian distributor.
I have a blog where I talk about avant-garde cinema and recently I have written your own film and how a certain kind of cinema is badly distributed, if not licensed at all here. The link to the article:
http://cinevisioni-collection.blogspot.com/2012/01/garden-of-earthly-delights.html
I was pleased to have had the opportunity to write and wish you a successful career, there it would take real actresses like her.
Congratulations again and Best Regards!
Gianfranco (Pordenone - Italy)
Amazing movie!
Unfortunately, the movie is very hard to find. Lech Majewski is a very exciting director, he is in full swing with Peter Greenaway indeed. A particularly intense movie with some memorable scenes. The stunning parallel between Bosch's masterpiece and the love finished (?) with death, meditation on human metaphysics and his body chemistry are just a few of the elements that stick to this film. I remember a film about which Lech Majevski, The Anonymous Venetian, 1970, probably remembers about, the same theme (love and death) and exactly the same decor, Venice. But the comparison is over here. I really enjoyed the music of the same Majevski.
thank you
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