Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti is to provide the music from his opera 'la passion selon Sade' (The Passion According to Sade) as a score for Auckland-born filmmaker Paul Amlehn's upcoming feature The Tears of Eros.

Born in Florence, 1931, Sylvano Bussotti has created the most dramatic and unusual graphic scores of the post-World War II avant-garde. He is also among the most important artists to bring a polymorphous sexuality onto the operatic and concert stage.

A common but painful New Zealand dilemma is explored in a new documentary. MARGARET AGNEW talks to Roseanne Liang, the woman behind Banana in a Nutshell.

Reviewed by Caleb Starrenburg

Watching Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor) is a little like descending into a vodka-induced haze. Actually, I’m not sure that it is, but I thought it necessary to preface any review of contemporary Russian film with clichéd reference to vodka.

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov and based on the novels by Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch concerns an ancient battle between the forces of good and evil. As the film’s prologue explains (curiously narrated in English; the rest of the film is subtitled), in the world there are humans and ‘Others’. Others, who can pass as humans, possess all sorts of crazy supernatural powers. The Others are divided between those serving the dark and those who follow the light.

Amarbir Singh/NZ/2004; R0
Indipact, NZ$25 | Reviewed by John Spry

1Nite exposes the Big City Life; its story based around one of the country’s most infamous inner-city streets. Selected for the 2004 New Zealand International Film Festival, and now available on DVD, the film gathers New Zealand locations, producers and artists together to tackle the urban milieu in an honest and forthright manner.

Media Release | January 17th, 2006
Banana in a Nutshell, directed by first-generation Chinese New Zealander Roseanne Liang, returns by popular demand to Auckland and Wellington for a strictly limited season in February.

Narrated in self-confessional style and through a series of family interviews, the ground-breaking documentary explores the experiences of Liang and her navigations through rough waters to get a blessing from her traditional Chinese parents to marry a Pakeha Kiwi.

David Simon/USA/2002; R4 (5-disc)
Warner Bros, NZ$89.95 | Reviewed by Tim Wong

WHILE local media dig their claws into a recent headline drug bust involving a high-profile fashion mogul and the designer label he's alleged to have used as a cannabis-growing front, the situation elsewhere is less tabloid, and far graver than news coverage suggests. The Wire, David Simon's brilliant, cynical HBO crime drama addresses the Big Issues; issues that compound and hinder the so-called "war on drugs". And you know what they say: you can't call that shit a war if it never ends.

This year, no joint editor's ten, no cult DVD retrospective, no rambling overview: just lists, lists, lists. Apart from the loose criteria of keeping film selections within the parametres of the 2005 calendar year (by view date), the following carries no particular format or theme. Note: the lists published here reflect the views of the individuals – the contributors and staff called upon to maintain The Lumière Reader. Let the list-making begin.

Reviewed by Kim Lesch

A FEW 'w' words on John Maybury's Love is the Devil: whoopie, wowzers, wonderful.

A few 'p' words on John Maybury's The Jacket: plotless, pointless, painful.

A few more words on The Jacket in general: I like Sci-fi films. I sat through all of Omega Man AND Soylent Green. I think Logan's Run rules the roost – but The Jacket simply pales in comparison to what it is essentially striving for: terrific 70s Sci-fi flicks. The sort that have a twisting plot, mysterious philosophical circumstances, and a pretty girl who needs saving. Keira Knightley (The Girl) doesn't exactly 'need' saving as much as she needs to eat a goddamn sandwich, but I digress.

To jump start the new year, The Lumière Reader has courtesy of Warner Bros. Home Video a copy of Six Feet Under: The Complete Fourth Season on DVD to giveaway. With the fifth and final season of the cult HBO drama currently in progress on TV1, this DVD provides a timely opportunity to reacquaint oneself with the dysfunctional on-goings of the Fisher family and co. (see our DVD review here). To enter, simply subscribe to our mailing list by emailing your name and address to giveaways@lumiere.net.nz under the subject heading "SUBSCRIBE + SFU". Current subscribers can also enter. New Zealand residents only. One entry per person. Entries close February 6, 2006. Standard terms and conditions apply.

Alan Ball/USA/2004; R4, (5-disc)
Warner Bros, NZ$74.95 | Reviewed by Tim Wong

LET'S GET something straight here: I like Six Feet Under. I like the bit where someone dies at the beginning of every episode. I like its psychosexual tendencies. I like how a dead porn star can suddenly come to life on the mortuary table, and start talking about her perfectly formed breasts. This does not make me weird. It just makes me interested.

A reminder that Lumière Industries' rare back issue catalogue of Lumière Magazine – the print incarnation of The Lumière Reader before it migrated permanently online – is now available to own, while stocks last. A set of four issues (#2, #2.5, #3, #4) costs $6.95 (inc. GST). Price includes p&p to a New Zealand address (international orders by request). Proceeds go towards the annual web hosting costs of lumiere.net.nz. For full details....[Read More]