Criterion has had a solid, if largely unremarkable year, but when they've hit (the Rossellini/Bergman set, a restored Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Zatoichi!) they've hit hard. Among their finest offering in years is what is hopefully but the first compilation of restored works by the World Cinema Foundation, a grouping of stylistically and geographically distinct films that are united by their ability to illuminate cultures scarcely covered in Western film, or even, in the case of independent or ahead-of-their-time works from nations that have since built major film industries (India/Bangladesh and South Korea), their own popular national cinema. It's an essential purchase.
Read my review of the films in the set at Film.com.
