Arrow Academy Brings ASHES & DIAMONDS And THE TIN DRUM To Blu-ray This Fall

It has been too long since I've covered Arrow Academy's fantastic releases.  They've got two magnificent titles ready to go this fall that everyone should own.  First up is Andrzej Wajda's Ashes & Diamonds, making it's UK debut on ALL REGION Blu-ray, here are the details:

Regarded as one of the greatest of all Polish films from its premiere in October 1958, Andrzej Wajda's third feature Ashes and Diamonds retains that stature over half a century later.

The entire film takes place on 8 May 1945, when the war in Europe ended with Germany's formal surrender - but while other countries celebrated, Poland's postwar power struggle was only just beginning. In depicting the various factions jockeying for position, including ambitious Communists, aristocratic patriots, cynical journalists and anti-Nazi rebels recently emerged from the Warsaw sewers, Wajda brilliantly anatomises a riven country desperately trying to find its identity at a time when a fifth of its population had recently been killed and many more driven into exile. Maciek Chelmicki (Zbigniew Cybulski) embodies this conflict: outwardly a calculating assassin, his ultra-cool façade begins to crack when he badly botches a mission, falls in love with the barmaid Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska) and dares to dream of a life outside the armed resistance that's characterised his entire adult life. His all too human indecision makes him Polish culture's Hamlet, and Cybulski's performance remains iconic to this day.

Arrow Academy presents Andrzej Wajda's masterpiece on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

Special Features:
- High Definition Blu-ray and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the film
- New 2K resolution restoration of the film image and sound transferred from 35mm
- Interview with director Andrzej Wajda on 'Ashes & Diamonds'
- Comprehensive booklet by writer and film historian Michael Brooke, including new writing on the film, a re-print of Marek Hendrykowsk's monograph on 'Ashes & Diamonds', Andrzej Wajda's lecture on 'Cinema Past and Present' and more!
- Artwork presentation packaging including three original posters and a newly commissioned artwork cover

Region ABC
RRP £24.99

Next up is a personal favorite, Volker Schlondorff's The Tin Drum, available for the first time on English-friendly Blu-ray (as far as I can tell) in the new director's cut, rumored to be on Criterion's schedule for next year, you can get in this November from the UK on a Region B disc if you are compatible.  Check out those details here:

Winner of the Cannes Palme d'Or and the Best Foreign Film Oscar, and adapted from one of the major works of postwar German literature (whose author later won the Nobel Prize), few films have such a powerhouse artistic pedigree.

When Oskar Matzerath (the extraordinary David Bennent, just twelve at the time) receives a tin drum for his third birthday, he vows to stop growing there and then - and woe betide anyone who tries to take his beloved drum away from him, as he has a banshee shriek that can shatter glass. As a result, he retains a permanent child's-eye perspective on the rise of Nazism as experienced through petit-bourgeois life in his native Danzig, the 'free city' claimed by both Germany and Poland whose invasion in 1939 helped kick-start World War II. With the help of Luis Buñuel's favourite screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, director Volker Schlöndorff turns Günter Grass's magical-realist masterpiece into a carnivalesque frenzy of bizarre, grotesque yet unnervingly compelling images as Oskar turns his increasingly jaded eye and caustic tongue on the insane follies of the adult world that he refuses to join.

Arrow Academy presents Volker Schlöndorff's masterpiece in its original theatrical version and the Director's Cut, seen for the first time in the UK after its Cannes Film Festival premiere.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- High Definition and Standard Definition presentation of the original theatrical version [1080p]
- High Definition presentation of the Director's Cut [Blu-ray only 1080p]
- New restoration of both the theatrical version and the brand new Director's Cut approved by director Volker Schlöndorff
- 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
- Audio commentary with director/co-screenwriter Volker Schlöndorff
- Brand new interview with Volker Schlöndorff
- Original Trailer [Blu-ray only]
- Comprehensive booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by George Lellis and Hans-Bernhard Moeller, authors of Volker Schlondorff's Cinema: Adaptation, Politics and the Movie-appropriate, as well as extracts from Volker Schlöndorff's diary, writing by Jean Claude Carrière and Günter Grass, illustrated with archival stills.
- Artwork presentation packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork and three original posters

Region B/2

I love The Tin Drum, and I'm anxious to see Ashes & Diamonds!  Arrow Academy's releases so far have been stellar, with Rififi being a special treat.  I'll bring you more news and reviews as I get the product to share.  Links for pre-order are below, do it!