The Animals Come Out At Night

LARS VON TRIER is an inveterate joker. Sometimes the Danish director's need to walk a bad taste tightrope leads to a PR disaster, as was famously the case at the Cannes Film Festival last month, but artistically Von Trier has proved himself to be one of contemporary cinema's most amusing and effective provocateurs. In 2003, for example, he challenged his fellow Dane Jorgen Leth to remake his 1967 short film The Perfect Human five times, on each occasion putting a different 'obstacle' in Leth's way (make it as a cartoon, shoot the film in the worst place in the world and never let the location appear on the screen, etc). The result was The Five Obstructions, which is as much an absorbing documentary about the director-producer relationship as it is a study of the creative process.

So, you may ask, what does this have to do with Taxi Driver? Well, it was recently confirmed that Von Trier will be repeating his The Five Obstructions exercise with Martin Scorsese. And it's rumoured that the film Scorsese will be remaking in accordance with Von Trier's provocative instructions is Taxi Driver, his 1976 study of God's lonely man who would not take it anymore. We'll have to wait a while to find out if a collaboration between two of the world's most gifted filmmakers will add anything to the Taxi Driver mythos, but for now the 35th-anniversary release of the restored and remastered film on Blu-ray for the first time gives huge cause for celebration.

Paul's Schrader's intense, Dostoyevskian screenplay charts the descent into madness of physically and emotionally isolated Vietnam vet-turned cabby Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). Restlessly trawling New York's seedy neon-lit streets like a shark, he has to keep moving to escape from himself. If he doesn't, he'll die. As Travis becomes increasingly sickened by the 'animals' and 'scum' he encounters, Scorsese burrows so deep into the character's psyche that the film enters a dreamlike state where you often question the veracity of what you're seeing on the screen. Hope briefly flickers in the form of Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a political campaign volunteer, but Travis's warped moral sat nav has him locked into a collision course with destiny.

I've watched Taxi Driver on numerous formats over the years, including muddy VHS tapes and scratch-riddled cinema prints, and it has never looked better than this. The Blu-ray also comes with a trunkload of extras - including Scorsese and Schrader commentaries, documentaries and a look at how the movie's Big Apple locations have weathered the passage of time - making it a strong contender already for reissue of the year. Perhaps the Scorsese-Von Trier project will throw up new insights, but until then it's enough to be able to see this masterpiece as its director originally intended. (10/10).

Taxi Driver and The Bridge On The River Kwai both released on Blu-ray in the same month? Sony, you spoil us. Also digitally restored, David Lean's 1957 World War Two epic is set in a Japanese POW camp in Burma. At the heart of the film lies a gripping battle of wills between camp commander Colonel Saito (played by Sessue Hayakawa) and interned British officer Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness in Oscar-winning form). With sumptuous cinematography by Jack Hildyard, a terrific cast and a pitch perfect score by Malcolm Arnold, The Bridge On The River Kwai represents British filmmaking at its very best. (9/10).

Taxi Driver and The Bridge On The River Kwai are out now (both Sony Pictures Home Entertainment).

COLIN HOULSON

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