Criterion in August 2026: COUP DE TORCHON, LITTLE ODESSA, SAFE
Based on a single theatrical viewing some 45 years ago, Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de torchon (1981) stands as the best movie ever made.
Imagine my delight when I saw it listed as one of the releases in the Criterion Collection's August 2026 lineup. To be issued on Blu-ray, the new edition will feature a new 4K digital restoration and a "new interview with critic and poet Robert Polito about source-novel author Jim Thompson," per Criterion, which describes the film thusly:
"With this existential crime thriller, legend of French cinema Bertrand Tavernier transforms Jim Thompson's hard-boiled novel Pop. 1280 into a darkly comic, philosophically provocative exploration of the brutality and absurdity of colonialism.
"Moving the story's setting from the American South to 1930s French West Africa, Coup de torchon features a frighteningly enigmatic performance from Philippe Noiret as a police chief whose seeming ineptitude masks a cold-blooded pursuit of revenge and control that draws his opportunistic mistress (a fiery Isabelle Huppert) into an escalating spiral of violence.
"With each chilling revelation, Tavernier plunges us ever deeper into an abyss of madness and corruption, laying bare the decaying soul of empire."
If, however, you prefer your crime thrillers to be more like "a Dostoevskian family tragedy in the form of a gangster drama," as Criterion phrases it, James Gray's debut Little Odessa (1994) may be your pick. It will be released in 4K, which may enhance your viewing pleasure of a very dark (both visually and emotionally) movie. With Gray's newest film, Paper Tiger, debuting at Cannes, this release will be quite timely.
The third film to highlight here is Todd Haynes' Safe (1995), revolving around Julianne Moore's extraordinary performance in "a profoundly unsettling film" that "functions on multiple levels: as a prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what you cannot see." It will also be released in 4K.
Here at Screen Anarchy, we don't cover as many documentaries as we narrative genre features, but we don't mean to ignore them entirely. I've seen the two by the great Barbara Kopple that are due to release in August: the subtle and scathing Harlan County USA (1976), and b>American Dream (1990). Both films, both about labor strikes but with very different outcomes, won Academy Awards. The former will be in 4K, the latter on Blu-ray only.
Finally, five more documentaries that I've never seen will be collected together: Eclipse Series 49: Five Radical Documentaries by Kazuo Hara and Sachiko Kobayashi. I'll go to Criterion's press release for a description:
"Shocking, confrontational, and made with white-hot fury, these radical documentaries--directed by Kazuo Hara and produced by his wife and longtime creative partner, Sachiko Kobayashi--give voice to the outsiders and iconoclasts who wage war against the conformism of modern Japanese society.
"From a woman willing to risk everything on her journey toward personal and sexual liberation (Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974) to a man whose quest to expose Japanese wartime atrocities borders on madness (The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On), the unforgettable subjects of these films are invited to be collaborators in Hara and Kobayashi's process, resulting in works of unmatched power and immediacy."
Visit Criterion's official site to learn more about each titles and to place your oders; it's a good time to do so, since their Spring sale is ongoing, offering 30% off all titles through May 25.
