Films on DVD

Song of the Sea director: tomm moore
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
director: Isao Takahata
The Wind Rises director: Hayao Miyazaki
Inside Out directors: Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen
The Salt of the Earth
directors: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders
The Shop Around the Corner
director: Ernst Lubitsch
The Dead director: John huston

Christmas seems the ideal time to turn your back on the screen, of any size. But the reality is that for most there comes a moment when the feasting or the caring has to stop and it is time to reach for a DVD.

Of the many styles of animation, I am particularly charmed by the aesthetic of the Irish films made by Tomm Moore – first The Secret of Kells and now Song of the Sea. Once again, Moore imbues ancient patina and reference to hand-drawn forms (this time in shifting marine hues). The story, which concerns a “selkie”’ – half-human, half-seal – is simple enough to engage small children while delivering dazzling visuals for their elders.

Two recent tales from the Japanese Studio Ghibli, co-founded by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and The Wind Rises, are tinged with the knowledge that they may be among the last, with Miyazaki’s retirement. A little ponderous for children, maybe, these films will seem elegant to adults. By contrast, all ages will be engaged by Inside Out, the Pixar animation about emotions, that can be read as colourful fantastical adventure or bold depiction of neuroscience. It is a cracker, if not exactly restful.

By contrast, there is The Salt of the Earth, a contemplative documentary about the photographer Sebastião Salgado (by his son) that does not sell short the monochrome power and beauty of his images of workers and migrants in some of the world’s toughest environments. An antidote to consumerist excess, certainly.

In recent years, two friends have each selected a favourite classic to show to family and friends between Christmas and New Year. One chose The Shop Around the Corner, director Ernst Lubitsch’s glorious romantic comedy from 1940 set in a Budapest store some years before the war. Fleet and witty (Ben Hecht worked on the script), it proves deliciously romantic as the thoughtful assistant (James Stewart) spars with a peppy young woman who is employed alongside him on the shop floor of Matuschek and Company.

Misunderstandings and intrigues spin around sharp observations about the business of selling (and wooing). There is spice in the character studies (largely émigré actors) to add to the general studio confection of snowy Mitteleuropa, an irresistible mix. Unfortunately, the film is not always easy to find on DVD but several James Stewart collections include it.

The other choice was apparently sombre: The Dead, the last film by director John Huston, made in 1987, from James Joyce’s story set in 1904 Dublin at Epiphany. The film itself was a family affair: the adaptation was by Huston’s son Tony and his daughter Anjelica took the role of Gretta, wife of the academic, Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann).

The Conroys attend the annual dinner and dance of the Morkan sisters, and as the evening proceeds, with speeches and revels (from a fine Irish cast) the film moves to a wider contemplation of memory and ­mortality in the rare silence of heavy snowfall. I had seen the film on its release but this ­second visit, in company, at this time of year, was a revelation.