DVD releases

The Fountain | Ashes And Diamonds | Babel | Suburban Mayhem | The Return | The Harder They Come | Laurence Olivier Centenary Collection

The Fountain
£19.99, Fox

The Fountain is a convoluted, meandering mess of a movie that serves no real purpose other than to offer up a series of pretty images. That's the opinion one viewing of this film will probably elicit. But if you're one of those people who thinks a film featuring a guy flying through space with a tree in a bubble deserves a second chance, then there are plenty of treasures in store. Darren Aronofsky has never subscribed to the theory that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. He's more aligned to the thinking that you can have several of each, and in no particular order. The film-makers he admires - Stanley Kubrick, Nic Roeg, Ken Russell, etc - are ones who cannot be imitated in style, only in spirit.

This is his stab at a timeless, existential science fiction - a genre not exactly stuffed with success stories. The story concerns scientist Hugh Jackman racing to unlock the secrets of immortality before his wife, Rachel Weisz, succumbs to a deadly disease. Weisz has written a novel set in the 16th century concerning a conquistador's similar quest for the fountain of youth. Also, in a possible future/imagined scenario, a bald Jackman nears the end of a journey to revitalise the tree of life. Clear? With his old-style special effects and an excellent soundtrack, Aronofsky has made a spectacular love letter to the art films he's been influenced by. In many ways, this is his Grindhouse. The extras include a brief look at the design work for the original, cancelled, big-budget version starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.

Ashes And Diamonds
£17.99, Arrow Films

The third in Andrzej Wadja's loose trilogy of war films, this tends to be the one that gets all the plaudits. Rightly so, as its unusual setting at the very end of the second world war makes for a complex story, both personally and politically. Cool, sunglasses-wearing freedom fighter Maciek (played by cult hero Zbigniew Cybulski) is busy assassinating communists who have rushed into Poland to seize control in the wake of the fleeing Nazis. For the cynical but charming Maciek the fight for freedom is never-ending, and that seems to be just the way he likes it. He's been thriving during the occupation and seems to actually enjoy the thrill of these hits. But his career becomes soured when he kills the wrong people, and sees a glimpse of the civilian life he's been missing when he flirts with a hotel barmaid. Wadja captures a country divided and in flux. It's not a film that deals with good and evil, almost everyone is conflicted by doses of both.

Also out


Iñárritu's globe-skipping ill-communication tragedy.

· £19.99, Paramount

Suburban Mayhem

Lively Aussie white-trash black comedy following a wild, wild woman.

· £15.99, Contender

The Return

Sarah Michelle Gellar gets spooked by her hometown in a slick horror.

· £17.99, Universal

The Harder They Come

Remastered 35th anniversary edition of the Jamaican gangster great, including the soundtrack.

· £18.99, Revolver

Laurence Olivier Centenary Collection

Ten of Sir Larry's works, major and minor, including Hernry V and Richard III.

· £89.99, Network