The Romance of Redemption

Kino Classics' three DVD set Fritz Lang: The Early Works collects some of the earliest, rarest efforts from the director of such provocative classics as Metropolis (1926), M (1931) and Fury (1936). Probably the most surprising thing about the trio of restored 1919-21 German silents assembled here is that they have very little of the austere, carefully composed visual style that Lang would later be well-known for.

Documenting a road trip undertaken by one of the most plausibly despicable brother-sister pairings in all of cinema, Alex Ross Perry’s second feature The Color Wheel is an astonishing work of pathos that broaches the question of redemption by way of a sincerity shellacked with layer upon layer of cynical vitriol.

Tragic masterpiece explores mind of an artist in alternately joyful and despairing letters recounting an unhappy romance. Goethe addresses issues of love, death, and redemption in an influential portrayal of a character who struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world.