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Cannes 2012 Latest: Michael Haneke, Alain Resnais and Thomas Vinterberg plus the highlight of the festival so far

Gales and heavy downpours haven't dampened the spirits of MovieMail's man on the Croisette, Alexander Ballinger, as Michael Haneke and Alain Resnais make a splash in the official competition.

It's Day 7 of the festival at the time of writing and 14 competition films have now unspooled in the Palais Lumière. Front-runners for the Palme d'Or are Amour and Beyond the Hills while Rust and Bone and Killing ...

 

Le Quai des Brumes - golden age French cinema restored, just £11.99 on DVD

Jean Gabin plays the fated army deserter looking to make good on life in this classic from the French golden age. It's the distillation of French romantic pessimism, says David Parkinson.

In 1933, Marcel Carné (Les Enfants du Paradis) wrote an essay entitled, ‘When will the Cinema descend into the Street?’ Like François Truffaut's later call for a departure from ‘cinéma du papa’, this was a bold ma...

 

Martha Marcy May Marlene - award-winning psychological drama, just £14.99

A fleeing cult member struggles to re-adapt to life on the outside in this visually arresting conundrum of a film, whose moments of muted horror are genuinely chilling, says Peter Wild.

Pitched somewhere between the elegant glacial beauty of Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides and the more obscure and ambiguous work of Michel Haneke, Sean Durkin’s debut Martha Marcy May Marlene is a visually arrestin...

 

COI Collection Volume 7: The Queen on Tour - just £13.99 on DVD

A fascinating record of how much times have changed in her reign, this is a valuable, revealing record of royal tours and state visits, gathered together to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

 

A Royal Occasion: From Victoria to Elizabeth II - just £13.99 on DVD

An illuminating collection of rare archive footage, from scenes at Balmoral and Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (1897) to Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953, on a range of Royal themes.

 

Island of Lost Souls - classic horror starring Charles Laughton, just £13.99

Banned by the BBFC for being 'against nature', Erle C Kenton's adaptation of HG Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau out-horrors Universal’s Frankestein and Dracula, says Julia Upton.

This is clearly the best adaption of H.G. Wells' novel. The make up and costumes are just as incredible as the beautiful scenery. Still terrifying after all these decades, "Island of Lost Souls" was a real kick in...

 

Cannes 2012 Days 1-4: camping, killer whales and bootleggers

The 65th Cannes Film Festival has begun buoyantly with a flurry of fine films reports MovieMail's man on the Croisette, Alexander Ballinger.

At the time of writing it's Day 4 of the festival and 7 competition films have received their world premieres in the vast 2,500 seat Palais Lumiere: it's time to take stock of some of the early delights and discov...

 

Ruggles of Red Gap - starring Charles Laughton, just £13.99 on DVD & Blu-ray

Finally available for home viewing in the UK, Leo McCarey's satire on European diffidence and American snobbery is a delight, and showcases Laughton at his comic best, says James Oliver.

Marmaduke Ruggles (Laughton) is a gentleman's gentleman, happy to serve just as his forefathers served. So when his master trades Ruggles' services in a poker game, he is somewhat dismayed. Worse still, his new em...

 

The Artist - a wonderful modern-day silent comedy, just £14.99 on DVD

Michel Hazanavicius's Oscar-sweeping film sees a movie star facing decline with the advent of the talkies. It recalls a whole world of cinema waiting to be rediscovered, says Milo Wakelin.

 

Classic Bergman - an enticing 5 film set of Ingmar Bergman's little-seen works

Five films from Ingmar Bergman: It Rains on Our Love (1946), A Ship Bound for India (1947), Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), Dreams (1955) and So Close to Life (1958). Anthony Nield takes a look.

Classic Bergman brings together five of the Swedish director’s little-seen works. Three have never previously been released onto disc in the UK, whilst two were only available as part of the mammoth (and prohibiti...

 

House of Tolerance - a ravishing study of a Parisian brothel, just £10.99

Languorous and opulent, with stunning, crepuscular photography, Bonello's study of a fin-de-siecle brothel is one of the most ravishing films in recent years, says James Oliver.

As the nineteenth century bled into the twentieth, 'closed houses' – or 'houses of tolerance' – were high-class bordellos where a well-to-do gentleman might enjoy some female company and good, clean fun. At least ...

 

The Comedy of Errors - Trevor Nunn's great 1978 RSC production, just £9.99

Nunn’s legendary RSC song and dance version of Shakespeare's ribald comedy stars the actors of the RSC at the top of their game, says Alexander Ballinger.

Thankfully for theatre fans, Trevor Nunn’s legendary RSC song 'n' dance version of The Comedy of Errors was filmed by Granada Television in the Seventies. Frustratingly it has only been intermittently available si...