The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have confirmed three new titles to be released on Blu-ray in February 2021.
The trio of films announced includes one of the finest works of late Soviet cinema, a glittering emblem of sixties style and macabre wit, and an exquisite modern great set amid the old world splendour of Europe between the World Wars.
A Film By Larisa Shepitko
Release Date: 15 February 2021
The crowning triumph of a career cut tragically short, Larisa Shepitko’s final film won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and went on to be hailed as one of the finest works of late-Soviet cinema.
In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard-swept landscape of Nazi-occupied Belarus. When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film’s earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory.
With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch-black despair, The Ascent finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war.
Special Edition Features:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New selected-scene commentary featuring film scholar Daniel Bird
- New video introduction by Anton Klimov, son of director Larisa Shepitko and filmmaker Elem Klimov
- New interview with actor Lyudmila Polyakova
- The Homeland of Electricity, a 1967 short film by Shepitko
- Larisa, a 1980 short film tribute to his late wife by Klimov
- Two documentaries from 2012 about Shepitko’s life, work, and relationship with Klimov
- Program from 1999 featuring an interview with Shepitko
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by poet Fanny Howe
A Film By Stanley Donen
Release Date: 15 February 2021
In this comedic thriller, a trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American, played by Audrey Hepburn in gorgeous Givenchy, through Paris in an attempt to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them.
The only person she can trust is Cary Grant‘s suave, mysterious stranger.
Director Stanley Donen goes deliciously dark for Charade, a glittering emblem of sixties style and macabre wit.
Special Edition Features:
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary featuring director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film historian Bruce Eder
A Film By Wes Anderson
Release Date: 22 February 2021
Wes Anderson brings his dry wit and visual inventiveness to this exquisite caper set amid the old-world splendor of Europe between the world wars.
At the opulent Grand Budapest Hotel, the concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his young protégé Zero (Tony Revolori) forge a steadfast bond as they are swept up in a scheme involving the theft of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune—while around them, political upheaval consumes the continent.
Meticulously designed, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a breathless picaresque and a poignant paean to friendship and the grandeur of a vanished world, performed with panache by an all-star ensemble that includes F. Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Mathieu Amalric, Tilda Swinton, and Bill Murray.
Director Approved Special Edition Features:
- 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Wes Anderson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New audio commentary featuring Anderson, filmmaker Roman Coppola, and actor Jeff Goldblum
- Selected-scene storyboard animatics
- The Making of “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” a new documentary about the film
- New interviews with the cast and crew
- Video essays from 2015 and 2020 by critic Matt Zoller Seitz and film scholar David Bordwell
- Behind-the-scenes, special-effects, and test footage
- Trailer
- PLUS: Two pieces by critic Richard Brody and a double-sided poster and other ephemera
