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Nearly 35 years after its original debut at the Venice Film Festival, Peter Brook’s epic film adaptation of “The Mahabharata” is returning to the Lido in a meticulously restored 8K version. The restoration, spearheaded by the late director’s son Simon, marks a new chapter for the groundbreaking 1989 production that brought the ancient Indian epic to global audiences.

“The Mahabharata” holds a unique place in Peter Brook’s storied career. Based on his nine-hour stage production, the film version clocked in at a still-substantial three hours. It featured an international cast performing in English and was shot in a Paris studio. The ambitious project aimed to distill the essence of the vast Hindu epic, exploring themes of war, ethics and power across generations.

Brook wanted to make a six-hour film initially, but this was deemed unfinanceable, so the decision was taken to shoot concurrently a three-hour film version and a six-hour TV version.

Franceso Rosi's warm, thoughtful tale sees a family gathering observe grievous modern problems -- after so much violence in Italian politics people are still looking for humanistic solutions. Philippe Noiret heads a great cast (with Charles Vanel) in this mellow reflection on 'the things of life.' Three Brothers Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Academy (UK) 1981 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date April 4, 2016 / Tre fratelli / Available from Amazon UK  Starring Philippe Noiret, Michele Placido, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Charles Vanel, Andréa Ferréol, Maddalena Crippa, Rosaria Tafuri, Marta Zoffoli, Simonetta Stefanelli. Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis Editor Ruggero Mastroianni Original Music Piero Piccioni Written by Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi from the book by A. Platonov Produced by Antonio Macri, Giorgio Nocella Directed by Francesco Rosi

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

So few of Francesco Rosi's films were released in the United States that until Criterion's disc of Salvatore Giuliano my only image of...

Patrice Chéreau dead at 68: French director best known for ‘Queen Margot,’ gay-related dramas (photo: Patrice Chéreau; Isabelle Adjani in ‘Queen Margot’) Screenwriter, sometime actor, and stage, opera, and film director Patrice Chéreau, whose clinically cool — some might say sterile — films were arthouse favorites in some quarters, has died of lung cancer in Paris. Chéreau was 68. Born on November 2, 1944, in Lézigné, in France’s Maine-et-Loire department, and raised in Paris, Patrice Chéreau began directing plays in his late teens. In the mid-’60s, he became the director of a theater in Sartrouville, northwest of Paris, where he staged plays with a strong left-wing bent. Later on he moved to Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, and in the ’80s became the director of the Théâtre des Amandiers in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. His 1976 staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth was considered revolutionary. Patrice Chéreau...

CHICAGO -- Viewers will find themselves between a rock and a hard place in Werner Herzog's latest opus, a high tale of man vs. the elements.

In this case, it's the quest to conquer the most treacherous mountain peak in the world, the Cere Torre in southern Patagonia, a needly, icy granite Argentine perch aptly described as a ''Scream of Stone.''

Winded by existential bellows and peaked with teutonic angst, ''Scream of Stone, '' screened here at the Chicago International Film Festival, is a ''Heart of Darkness''-like descent into man's inner demons, herein personified in two daredevil climbers -- the wizened, wordly Roccia (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) and the cocky, young Martin (Stefan Glowacz).

The two rock men are goaded into a duel by a manipulative sports journalist-promoter named Ivan (Donald Sutherland) who's a master of instigative journalism -- there's glory and big bucks in it for all.

Although Hans-Ulrich Klenner and Walter Saxer's screenplay ascends a philosophical altitude every bit as lofty as Sunday afternoon sports programs' reach in the off-seasons, the film's visual excitement rarely reaches the heights of most bowling shows.

Although there is some harrowing, upper-limit footage in the film's final scenes, most of the film's rock-climbing sequences could be duplicated this afternoon just as breathtakingly, say, if Roger Corman simply ordered a few bags of cement this morning and slabbed out a shooting ridge for a 3 p.m. shoot.

There is, admittedly, a dual-operatic dimension to this effort: the first is thundered out by some German symphony blasting away in Wagner-

There is, admittedly, a dual-operatic dimension to this effort: the first is thundered out by some German symphony blasting away in Wagner-ian, the second is mouthed out by the characters yowling away in soap-operatic woe. There is similarly grand stuff on the microcosmic level: not all is man vs. mountain.

Even between a climber and his mountain there's a woman and, not surprisingly, here it is a dazzlingly beautiful, enigmatic woman (Mathilda May) who has deluded herself into believing she's ''given up her studies'' for devotion to Roccia; but, of course she's torn when the younger model comes around.

Such complexity occasions Ivan to mutter ''Love is . . .'' and then before he can complete the thought, he waddles across a rope bridge, his orange scarf blowing in the breeze. Audiences, however, are not spared his ruminations on other topics.

Before one dismisses Herzog's bombast as straightforward stuff, mention must be made of the cryptic appearance of a red-eyed mountain man who calls himself Fingerless and who claims he has scaled the peak on numerous occasions; Fingerless has dedicated his climbs to Mae West, who, he believes, is still ''alive and running a beauty parlor.'' Fingerless is played by Brad Dourif, which further bolsters our contention that Herzog is poaching on Roger Corman terrain here.

Oh, and then there's an old Indian woman who lives alone in a shack on the mountainside and only speaks nonsense; her full-tonal yappings, however, offer wonderful commentary on the whole opus hocus: when she whails ''auckluooshirumodopaokadoooooroooseeyahdahyahwakehiaeedenawo, '' one concurs there isn't anything that can be said more comprehensibly about this production.

SCREAM OF STONE

Cine International

ProducersWalter Saxer, Henri Lange, Richard Sadler

Director Werner Herzog

Screenwriters Hans-Ulrich Klenner, Walter Saxer

Director of photography Rainer Klausmann

Production designer Juan Santiago

Costume designer Ann Poppel

Editor Suzanne Baron

Sound mixer Chris Price

Color/Stereo

Cast:

Roccia Vittorio Mezzogiorno

Katarina Mathilda May

Martin Stefan Glowacz

Ivan Donald Sutherland

Fingerless Brad Dourif

Running time -- 95 minutes

No MPAA rating

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...