On DVD: Barbara Albert's eye-popping exploration of 18th Century class, gender, music and medicine, MADEMOISELLE PARADIS

Grounded by a spectacular central performance from Romanian actress Maria Dragus (whom you'll remember from her role as the pivotal daughter in Graduation), the latest film from Austrian filmmaker Barbara Albert would be a must-see for Ms Dragus' work alone. But MADEMOISELLE PARADIS demands a viewing for so many other good reasons, including its status as one of the finest "period" films to be seen in many years. Taking place in 1777, it offers such an eye-popping array of costumes, wigs, furniture, tableware and all the rest that there is almost never a moment when you will be able to look away for fear of missing something even more spectacular.

Winning the sets-'n-costumes award may seem like small potatoes, but when the potatoes are this exquisite, TrustMovies suggests taking note.

Ms Albert, shown at left (of Free Radicals and Falling, among other films), is noted -- in my book, anyway-- for most often combining ideas and current events/themes. What's particularly interesting about Mademoiselle Paradis is how the ideas and events on display, though well over two centuries old, seem as current as today.

As director and co-adaptor (with Kathrin Resitarits) of the novel by Alissa Walser, Albert tells the based-on-fact tale of Maria Theresia Paradis (Ms Dragus, at right, below), a young woman who went blind during childhood and then became something of a piano prodigy.

We see her first at a recital in which she is the "star," who seems to be both envied and made fun of by her peers. When her uber-controlling parents send her away to the home/hospital of semi-famous practitioner Franz Anton Mesmer (yes: where we got that word mesmerism) to perhaps have that blindness cured,

our young heroine encounters life and possible change in ways that she has not heretofore experienced.

Class differences are shown us via the "downstairs" maids, kitchen help and their offspring, including one young crippled boy who is both loved and taunted.

The male upper crust, of course, is shown blithely having his entitled way with the maid of his choice (Maresi Reigner, shown at right and at bottom)-- with predictable but nonetheless devastating results.

The "blindness," which Mesmer treats, seems to be receding, which of course makes us wonder if it might have been psychosomatic. Given the relationship Maria Theresia has with her nasty parents (Lukas Miko and Katja Kolm, above, left and center), this makes sense, but the filmmaker does not insist upon anything. She simply observes and lets us ponder.

Mesmer himself (well played by Devid Striesow, above, right) seems as much concerned with his own status in the medical world as with that of his patients (ever timely), but he also proves a real help to our heroine.

The biggest problem arises when, as her blindness begins to take leave, so, too, do her musical gifts. And since these account for her parents' entry into the world of the aristocracy, this can't be allowed to happen.

How some (but not nearly all) of this is resolved brings the film to its quiet, sad, and not unexpected conclusion. The journey has been thought-provoking and even, in its way, quite timely. And the spectacular visuals are like a combination of vacation and time-travel.

It seems utterly appalling that a movie this good (it's at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) in so many ways -- Ms Dragus' superb performance is certainly among the year's best -- could not find even limited theatrical distribution here in the USA.

At least we're now able to see the film on DVD and streaming, thanks to First Run Features, which has released it here. It arrived on iTunes this past Tuesday, November 27, for streaming, and will hit DVD next Tuesday, December 11- - for purchase and/or (I would hope) rental.

The blind are leading the blind once again in Ido Fluk's film about faith, THE TICKET

Down the decades we've seen a number of films that track the journey of a person from the world of the sighted into that of the blind (the most recent would probably be the documentary, Notes on Blindness, while one of the best narrative versions would have to be Eskil Vogt's amazing Blind). In THE TICKET, the new movie written and directed by Ido Fluk (shown below), however, we go in exactly the opposite direction, as a blind man suddenly and rather miraculously wakes up one morning with his sight completely intact.

Once the change occurs, the big questions that soon arise are whether or not our "hero" -- played by Dan Stevens, shown above and below, the most ubiquitous actor currently around, with two films opening just this week (the other is Colossal) plus another huge hit already in theaters and a hit TV show currently unspooling) -- will change and grow or simply become even more of the the prick he most definitely seems to already be.

The answer that filmmaker Fluk gives us is "yes" to both, as well as to several other questions raised by this earnest and all-too-obvious film.

These further questions involve why the miracle man's wife (Malin Akerman, below left) chose this guy with whom to make a life. There were other blind folk at the center she visited. Was he simply a "project" for her?  And what about his blind best friend and work mate, played by Oliver Platt (below, right)? Is this guy jealous of our hero's new eyesight, not to mention his wife and son? Yes, and yes again. But so what? All this is not really Mr. Fluk's point. No, his movie is all about faith, and what the lack of it can do, as is apparent from the story/joke told about god, prayer, and a lottery ticket, which is handed to us as the film opens, is repeated again midway and then once again -- just in case we didn't get the point.

You can pray all you want but you can't win the prize if you don't have enough faith to first purchase the ticket. There is undoubtedly a way to make this lesson apply and adhere to a fictional story, but Fluk has not found it. The characterizations of everyone -- hero on down -- are paltry and the movie is glacially paced. The performances are part and parcel with the characterizations: only as good as the enormous lack of detail that the filmmaker provides. This includes those of Kerry Bishé (as the "other woman") and Skylar Gaertner (below, left) as the protagonist's young son. Worse, we have no clue what kind of guy our protag was before he got his sight. In terms of real characterization, this movie comes as close to running on empty as any I've recently seen.

Mr. Stevens is a very committed actor, and he is always as good as the role he is given. This is true here, too, though he's been handed the most embarrassing "breakdown" scene on film since poor Ewen Leslie's in The Daughter. As Stevens cries and moans and writhes and blubbers, you just want to scream, "Cut -- for Christ's sake, Cut!" If this movie is indeed about faith, it is so poorly conceived and executed that, by its end, audiences will find whatever faith they possess sorely tested -- if not knocked for a complete loop.

From Shout! Factory and running a too-long 100 minutes, The Ticket opens this Friday, April 7, in New York City at the Cinema Village and simultaneously On Demand most everywhere else.

Peter Middleton & James Spinney's adaptation of John Hull's memoir, NOTES ON BLINDNESS

John Hull (1935-2015) was a theologian/professor at The University of Birmingham who, at the age of 48 lost his sight, which had been failing for some time. "To understand blindness, to seek its meaning, to retain the fullness of my humanity," he explained at the time, the man began an audio diary, recording his physical, emotional, intellectual and philosophical responses to this life-changing situation.

All this eventually became Mr. Hull's memoir -- On Sight and Insight: A Journey into the World of Blindness -- which has now taken that further step into a motion picture adaptation titled NOTES ON BLINDNESS via two fledgling filmmakers, Peter Middleton and James Spinney (shown above, with Mr. Middleton on the right). The pair worked closely with the Hull family in the making of the film (Hull died last year before he could see the result of his collaboration), and their modus operandi was to use Hull's actual recordings for all the film's dialog -- which is confined to Hull, and occasionally his wife, speaking aloud -- which has then been lip-synched by the two actors involved (Dan Skinner, below, right, who looks a good ten to fifteen years younger than 48) and Simone Kirby, shown at bottom).

Technically, the movie is handled surprisingly well. The editing (by Julian Quantrill) and cinematography (Gerry Floyd) is as professional as can be, and the end result is seamless. But it is also practically sonombulent. The droning voice seldom varies, nor do the movie's visuals. Occasionally the filmmakers try to inject some pizzazz -- nightmares and fantasies such as a tsunami in a supermarket -- but this ends up seeming more jarring and out of place than anything else.

Much of Hull's verbiage is thoughtful and sometimes exquisitely phrased, so that you can imagine enjoying the experience of reading it rather than having to watch the often encumbering visuals. A scene of rain, with Hull's explanation of how this is somehow an audial equivalent of the act of seeing, is especially telling and beautiful. But then a second rain episode toward the finale -- shown below, with the water drenching the office, the tape recorder and even the family -- is simply silly.

The family visits Hull's parents in Australia, which provides some diversion -- and an occasion for fear and guilt -- then we're back in England again, which serves Hull as both a treat and a kind of rebirth. TrustMovies also found the film's time-line a bit confusing. At about the fifteen-minute point, we're told that two years have passed. But then, toward the end, it is still only 1985, and the film, or so I thought, began in 1983.

Whatever. Despite the random and often wonderfully specific and cogent reactions to his condition, I found myself almost fighting the visuals to better come to grips with the words. Consequently, Notes on Blindness proved one of the least immersive movies about its own subject matter that I have so far seen. Some of the British reviews were quite otherwise, so perhaps your reaction to the film will be different from mine.

During the end credits, we get a glimpse of the actual Mr. and Mrs. Hull before this movie -- distributed by BOND/360 and running 86 minutes -- comes to its close.  It makes its U.S. theatrical debut this Wednesday, November 16, in New York City at Film Forum, and then the following Friday it will open in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Elsewhere? Over the next few weeks and months, the film will play a number of cities across the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Eskil Vogt's startling and original new film takes us far and fiercely into the mind of the BLIND

What an unusual -- and unusually intelligent and psychologically astute -- movie is BLIND, the first full-length film to be directed by Eskil Vogt, the fellow who earlier co-wrote two other highly-regarded Norwegian films, Reprise and Oslo, August 31. Most films about the blind use this handicap for purposes of thrilling us (Wait Until Dark), plucking our heartstrings (At First Sight) or, more lately, showing us how the loss of one valuable sense only leads to the heightening of all the others (Netflix's brilliant new comic book-based series, Daredevil).

What interests Mr. Vogt, shown at left, is something else entirely: the state -- mental, physical, sexual, spiritual -- of being blind and what this can do to the suddenly no-longer sighted. That's a big order. What makes Blind even more impressive is how quietly and intelligently the filmmaker manages this. He allows his heroine, Ingrid, (Ellen Dorrit Petersen, shown below) to narrate, bringing us into her life in her own quiet manner, and we're of course with her all the way. Poor girl.

The key, she tells us, lies is in remembering things correctly. Such as the dog -- a German Shepherd -- or a department store. And so she remembers both. But wait: What is the dog doing inside the department store? Oh, yes -- and the poor girl's husband: addicted to porn web sites and voyeurism! The first fifteen minutes of the film, in fact, are practically a voyeur's delight. What with all the porn we see, and that sleaze of a hubby.

And then there's the neighbor (Vera Vitali, above) -- a divorced mom with a young son to care for. Wait a minute: I'm wrong. She has a daughter. And about that husband: there are actually two of them, one portrayed by that excellent actor, Henrick Rafaelsen (of The Almost Man), below, left, and the other by Marius Kolbenstvedt, below right, and also first-rate. There is so much going on here, but Mr. Vogt juggles it all quite snazzily, with superb visual flair underpinned by psychological realism and performances that make the bizarre seem almost credible.

Fantasies abound -- of being watched, of being highly sexual, of being another person entirely -- and the movie offers a surprising amount of humor, too. (Does that device for sorting laundry when you're blind actually exist? If not, someone should invent it!) And because the characters here are cultured and au courant, there are references aplenty for us to latch onto (the director's cut of Mask figures in rather prominently).

Oddly, as the movie grows weirder and crazier, it also becomes clearer what is going on. This juxtaposition works with surprising brilliance, finally offering up a film that is about as original a look at the world of one very particular blind person as you are likely to encounter.

From KimStim and Fandor, Blind opens this Friday, September 4, in New York City (at the IFC Center) and next Friday, September 11, in Los Angeles (at the Cinefamily), simultaneous with its debut on Fandor.
However you choose to see it, do. 

MARIE'S STORY: Jean-Pierre Améris' wondrous film about handling handicaps in France, 1900

What a glorious tale is MARIE'S STORY, and what a privilege it is to be able to so completely enter a new and alien world like the one shown us in this French film by Jean-Pierre Améris. The movie will surely bring to mind, for older folk, The Miracle Worker and the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan. Talking place in the verdant French countryside, in roughly the same decade that the Keller story occurred here in the USA, this tale of a blind and deaf French girl, Marie Heurtin (Keller and Huertin were born but five years apart), will enchant and move you in ways both expected and surprising. And the fact that you will know, almost from the first scene, where the film must go will not in any way make the journey less wondrous or gripping.

M. Améris (shown at right), who has earlier given us several fine films, including Romantics Anonymous and Bad Company (French version), is evidently not a filmmaker content to stay in the same genre. Other than via the quality of his films, I am not sure you would know that this is the fellow who had made them all. As chirpy, chipper, bubbly and odd as was Romantics Anonymous, Marie's Story proves equally quiet, clear and deeply felt. Both are as different as can be and yet work about as well within their genres as they possibly can. In his new film, Améris seems to know exactly where to place the camera -- and when, and for how long -- so that special moments become just that, without ever trying our patience or resorting to mere cliché.

Marie's story is that of a blind and deaf girl whose father refuses to commit her to an asylum and instead takes her to a convent where the nuns teach and train deaf girls. But blind and deaf? That's another matter. Thanks only to Sister Marguerite (played by the versatile and always commendable Isabelle Carré, at left, above), who insists that they give Marie (a knockout performance from Ariana Rivoire, above, right) her chance, we are able to experience the pain and emptiness, and then the growth and change that occur.

The supporting cast is small but well-used, with the fine Brigitte Catillon (above, center) as Mother Superior and Noémie Churlet (above, left) as Marguerite's best friend and accomplice in Marie's training.

What seals the movie's success is how well the filmmaker, who both directed and co-wrote (with Philippe Blasband), has managed to bring us into the world of Marie, in all its sadness, hunger and finally joy. Perhaps the deepest moments arrive as Marie must come to terms with Marguerite's increasingly fragile health.

The natural world and its beauty is shown us in the way Marie finally understands it. We are there, at one with the girl, as she progresses from wild child to alert, thoughtful, caring young woman. What a journey!

One of the gifts and grace of motion pictures comes in affording us the opportunity to go places we would never otherwise venture. Marie's Story manages this -- in spades.

The movie -- another don't miss from Film Movement and running just 95 minutes -- opens this Friday, May 1, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. It will hit L.A. at Laemmle's Royal on Friday, May 29, and in between and after at a number of cities across the USA.

Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, past and present, with cities and theatres listed.