Nostalghia - 4K Blu-Ray [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray]

The first film made outside his native Russia by director Andrei Tarkovsky is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of a Russian poet and musicologist who travels to a spa village in Italy's Tuscany region on a research project. Even as he longs to return to his homeland and his family, the poet is drawn to his lovely interpreter and fascinated with a local professor-turned-mystic. Oleg Yankovskiy, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano star. 125 min LANGUAGE In Italian with English subtitles.

Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (THE SUN) broke boundaries with his dreamlike vision of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russian Ark. It's the first feature-length narrative film shot in a single take (on digital video, using a specially designed disc instead of tape). Russian Ark is shot from the point-of-view of an unseen narrator, as he explores the museum and travels through Russian history. The audience sees through his eyes as he witnesses Peter the Great (Maksim Sergeyev) abusing one of his generals; Catherine the Great (Maria Kuznetsova) desperately searching for a bathroom; and, in the grand finale, the sumptuous Great Royal Ball of 1913. The narrator is eventually joined by a sarcastic and eccentric 19th century French Marquis (Sergey Dreiden), who travels with him throughout the huge grounds, encountering various historical figures and viewing the legendary artworks on display. While the narrator only interacts with the Marquis (he seems to be invisible to all the other inhabitants), the Marquis occasionally interacts with visitors and former residents of the museum. The film was obviously shot in one day, but the cast and crew rehearsed for months to time their movements precisely with the flow of the camera while capturing the complex narrative, with elaborate costumes from different periods, and several trips out to the exterior of the museum. Tilman Bnttner, the director of photography, was responsible for capturing it all in one single Steadicam shot.

An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu is the quintessential silent vampire film, crafted by legendary German director F. W. Murnau (Sunrise, Faust, the Last Laugh). Rather than depicting Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok (as portrayed by Max Schreck) is a nightmarish, spidery creature of bulbous head and taloned claws - perhaps the most genuinely disturbing incarnation of vampirism yet envisioned. Nosferatu was an atypical expressionist film in that much of it was shot on location. While directors such as Lang and Lubitsch built vast forests and entire towns within the studio, Nosferatu's landscapes, villages and castle were actual locations in the Carpathian Mountains. Murnau was thus able to infuse the story with the subtle tones of nature both pure and fresh as well as twisted and sinister. Remastered in high definition for the first time and making it's Blu-ray debut exclusively from Kino Classics.