Weekly Video/DVD Picks

Winged Migration (2003)

In the tradition of the also nearly wordless Atlantis (1991) and Mic-rocosmos (1996), Winged Migration is another invaluable nature documentary that “documents” with such extraordinary wonder and power that educational voiceover narration is superfluous: It's enough to see what the camera saw.

Director Jacques Perrin and his crew of pilots and cinematogra-phers spent four years traversing the globe, capturing unprecedented images of migratory birds in flight and on land. Shooting from hot-air balloons and ultralight aircraft, the filmmakers insinuate the camera's eye so intimately into the midst of airborne flights of birds that one can almost count the hair-like barbs on the feathers.

Some of the images are hard to watch: a tern with a broken wing struggling to evade an aggressive crab; a red-breasted duck mired in sludge near an industrial plant. Others are simultaneously comical and amazing: rock-hopper penguins energetically bouncing out of the surf, springing like miniature kangaroos over the rocky shore; swimming Clark's grebes abruptly running on tiptoe across the water's surface in synchronized pairs. It's a film that never goes very long without showing something you've never seen before.

Content advisory: A few images of birds in distress; a fleeting image of a dead bird. All ages.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Recently released in enhanced Superbit DVD, Lawrence of Arabia looks better than ever at home, though its 70mm glory is still best appreciated in the theater.

One of the cinema's grandest spectacles, Lawrence of Arabia is at turns exhilarating, devastating and puzzling as it ponders the mystery of a man who was a mystery to himself.

Based on the autobiography of eccentric, flamboyant World War I-era British officer T.E. Lawrence, who aided the Arab Bedouin against the German-allied Turks, David Lean's nearly four-hour epic is most often praised, justly so, for its magnificent desert cinematography, sweeping score and career-defining performance from Peter O'Toole. But attention should also be given to the screenplay, adapted by first-time screenwriter Robert Bolt, who later wrote A Man for All Seasons and The Mission.

Bolt's Lawrence, like his later Thomas More, seems to have what Bolt called "an adamantine sense of his own self”—so much so that Lawrence even pits himself against, if not God, at least pious religious resignation.

Yet unlike More, Lawrence finally lacks a place to stand. His mythic self-image is built on sand—and of course the floods ultimately come, with shattering consequences.

Content advisory: Recurring battlefield violence; implied sexual violence. Mature viewing.

Top Hat (1935)

The quintessential Fred-and-Ginger vehicle, Top Hat features some of the most glorious, memorable dance sequences ever filmed. The Irving Berlin score includes perhaps the duo's best-known number, “Cheek to Cheek,” as well as Astaire's signature solo number, “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails.”

Like many of their pictures, Top Hat opens with Fred making a bad first impression on Ginger, then spending much of the film trying to get on her good side. This device seems to fit Astaire's insouciant, sometimes annoying screen persona, though he's more sympathetic and likeable here than in some pictures.

The plot takes a turn for farce with a contrived case of mistaken identity, as Ginger confuses Fred with her best friend's husband. Suitably outraged, Ginger turns to her friend, who affects cynical unconcern to Ginger—though showing a different face to her bewildered, not entirely innocent husband.

With its glamorous, elegant trappings, Top Hat is typically escapist Depression-era fare with a hint of satire. Whenever Fred and Ginger are in motion, though, the magic is timeless.

Content advisory: Romantic and marital complications, including suspicions of infidelity and references to divorce. Teens and up.