Film: DVD Reviews

'Station Agent' stands tall with misfit cool

'The Station Agent'

($29.99, Buena Vista Home Video)
(movie)
(DVD format and extras)

"The Station Agent" belongs in last year's batch of small but intensely human dramedies lit up by radiant, real performances. "Lost in Translation," "Raising Victor Vargas," "All the Real Girls" and writer-director Tom McCarthy's "Station Agent" -- which stars a brooding dwarf -- were loose and peculiar. The modest stories unfolded organically, placing strong characters in interesting situations, and watching what happens. The screenplays felt flossy, like well-sketched outlines, but the characters pushed them to places at once true and original.

McCarthy's acclaimed story of lonely misfits goes to those places with restraint, humor and heart. Peter Dinklage, who is 4-feet-5-inches tall, plays Fin, a solitary train enthusiast who finds himself staffing a desolate depot in rural New Jersey. (The greenery is even more stunning in the DVD transfer.) Teased his whole life, Fin resides in a sad armor of his own design. He flinches at human contact, nudges people away. His heavy-brow, cool way with a smoke and disaffected mien have the makings of a great noir character. All he needs is a pistol and about 12 inches.

The shambling arrival of heartbroken Olivia (Patricia Clarkson, Oscar-worthy) and boisterous hot-dog-seller Joe (Bobby Cannavale) punctures Fin's hushed existence. Yet his initial irritation warms to embracing human connections he didn't know he needed. (A chubby grade-school girl adds to this makeshift league of misfits.)

McCarthy handles his poignant directorial debut with rare assurance. He trusts his actors to fill (or not) the frequent silences he's confident enough to include in what amounts to a sweetly funny chamber drama. In the pedestrian audio commentary by McCarthy and cast, he commends Dinklage for the unhurried tempo of his performance. "He will not," says McCarthy, "let the movie move any faster than it needs to."

'City of God'

($29.99, Miramax Films)
(movie)
(DVD format and extras)

When it unexpectedly was nominated for four Academy Awards this year including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, "City of God" came full circle -- like its characters in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, it beat the odds of low-budget foreign films to become a scrappy success.

Despite its being shutout by "The Return of the King," the nominations at least brought attention to the deserving film, a blast of cinematic adrenaline as potent as any you're likely to find on shelves this month.

The tale of kids growing up into gangsters in the sun-soaked "City of God" slums (which will later become a ramshackle urban wasteland of blue and gray hues) powers through its story with flair and flash, but also with extremely likable characters and a look at drug lords and street urchins that is as funny as it is heartbreaking.

Not that the film sentimentalizes its sharply drawn portraits -- Rocket, the would-be photojournalist; L'il Ze, the murderous villain who manages to be clueless about women but all-knowing about intimidation; wannabe hippie Benny; noble Knockout Ned and others -- of those living with the fear of death every day but who remain hopeful and vibrant. The film's savvy filmmaking echoes "Pulp Fiction" -- a fast and exhilarating patchwork of stories told with wit and style.

The DVD, which was delayed from an earlier release date, is disappointingly free of extras save a sobering hourlong documentary on the real-life slums of Rio; the DVD case doesn't even mention the film's flirtation with Oscars. No doubt there'll be a deluxe future edition from Miramax featuring more insight into how this remarkable film was made.
-- Omar L. Gallaga

'Touching the Void'

($29.98, MGM)
(movie)
(DVD format and extras)

Two men -- kids, practically -- set out to climb an icy peak in Peru that no human has scaled. It's harder than they expect, and they barely make it to the top; they run through their provisions too quickly, and need to hurry back down. Joe shatters his leg, and Simon hatches an ingenious plan to get him down safely. But when saving his partner seems about to cost his own life, Simon cuts him loose, sending Joe to certain death.

But Joe lives, and spends the rest of a torturous week crawling and climbing back to camp, praying that his friend will still be there.

It's an astonishing true-life adventure, and "Void" finds just the right way to tell it, combining present-day interviews (both Joe and Simon appear from the start, so we know they lived -- we just can't imagine how) with a gritty re-enactment of the climb. The climbing footage doesn't attempt to overreach its budget (this isn't "Cliffhanger"), but it wrings serious thrills out of the camera angles it can afford. The actors hardly speak at all, letting their real-life counterparts tell the tale and convey most of the emotion; but the mountain footage is able to depict the raw fear of, say, being stuck halfway down a dizzying crevasse, in a way that talking-heads material can't match.

Two featurettes cover the film's production and revisit the scene. But the DVD's most essential bonus feature is simply "what happened next," which abandons re-created footage in favor of photographs of the climbers working their way back to civilization. Unbelievably, Joe started climbing again as soon as he was healed. Triumph of the spirit or astounding hubris? You make the call.
-- John DeFore

New this week: "Curb Your Enthusiasm -- The Complete Second Season," "50 First Dates," "Monk -- The Complete First Season," "Nip/Tuck -- The Complete First Season," "Fleetwood Mac -- Live in Boston," "Ronald Reagan -- The Great Communicator," "Teacher's Pet," "The Simpsons -- The Complete Fourth Season," "Tupac: Resurrection."