Surviving Desire
by Hal Hartley
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Julie Sukman, Martin Donovan (II), Mary B. Ward, Matt Malloy, Merritt NelsonDirector: Hal Hartley
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-04-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Wellspring
Movie Reviews of Surviving Desire
Movie Review: Interesting to see his first film, but liked Trust a whole lot better
Summary: 3 Stars
I just bought and watched Surviving Desire and maybe due to my high expectations I was left a bit disappointed. It was definitely all Hal Hartley and the shorts "Ambition" and "Theory of Achievement" were interesting, but something bothered me about the main feature. It takes itself way too seriously. I love Trust and even The Unbelievable Truth and also Kiss Me, Hold Me - there's a lightness to them PLUS the fantastic insight of Hal Hartley and I am thinking it may have to do with Adrienne Shelley. She is the PERFECT match to Martin Donovan. I just like Andrienne's face. Does anyone know why she stopped doing films?
Summary of Surviving Desire
Surviving Desire is actually three short films, two of which--"Theory of Achievement" and "Ambition"--demonstrate writer-director Hal Hartley at his most quirky and abstract. They consist mostly of a series of dialogues, presented out of context, about things like Brooklyn real estate, nonlinear art, and contrasting male and female approaches to suicide. Fans of Hartley will enjoy them; newcomers will probably find them baffling. The third film, however--"Surviving Desire," from which the collection takes its title--is one of the most charming pieces Hartley has made. This hour-long story follows Jude (Martin Donovan), a college teacher obsessed with a single paragraph from The Brothers Karamazov, who's fallen in love with Sofie (Mary Ward), one of his students who's writing a short story about him. As the romance plays itself out, philosophical conversations turn into metaphysical Abbott and Costello routines, Jude breaks into spontaneous dance, a rock band in the street serenades a woman in her apartment window--and gradually a rueful and whimsical sense of life and love rises out of Hartley's erratic rhythms. Hartley is an idiosyncratic filmmaker who's not to everyone's taste; this short film is probably an ideal introduction to his work. Some of his movies seem to be working too hard for a sense of poetry and end up feeling stilted, but in "Surviving Desire" all of Hartley's devices take flight. --Bret FetzerComedy DVD Video
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