Hal Hartley

[Guest 19825]

Came across this director while browsing. Never heard of him before but the synopses of his movies look very cool. Any recommendations as to which one of his movies would be the best introduction to his work?

[kat23]

Don't know about best introduction but The Unbelievable Truth, Trust and Simple Men are excellent films and (imo) Hal Hartley's best films so far (that I have seen).

Amateur is also very good. Also liked Henry Fool a lot.

Was very disappionted with No Such Thing though.

[Guest 26892]

Maybe it is just the fanboy in me but I would recommend everything that I have seen from Hal Hartley. Even dubious stuff like 'The Book of Life' is interesting in an odd way but films like 'Amateur', the simply stunningly funny 'The Unbelievable Truth' and 'Surviving Desire' are all fantastic.

He is a very wordy director and all of his films are very much conversation based. But if you like stuff like this then I really couldn't recommend him enough.

[theblairwitch]

Trust for me every time. Now WHERE ARE THE DVDs !!!

Surely he must be one of the most unrepresented Directors (certainly in the UK where once he reigned supreme in his Indie world).

[kat23]

Unbelievable Truth is out on DVD (R2) in March No Trust yet though

There's a lot more out on R1 than I thought too.

Simple Men
Surviving Desire
No Such Thing
The Book of Life
Amateur
The Unbelievable Truth

Still no Trust

[Guest 26892]

On a further note Hal Hartley's official website is http://www.possiblefilms.com/ and very nice it is too

[Guest 19825]

Thanks everyone.

I was thinking about getting No Such Thing as a starter due to Sarah Polley, but no-one seems to think it's anything special, so I'll have to go for one of the other ones.

Didn't like the look of the trailer for The Unbelievable Truth to be honest, looked like it may be a bit dated?

Think I may go for Henry Fool R1 or Simple Men R1 ....

[Guest 24014]

If its between those 2 I'd go for Simple Men, got Robocop (3) in it & a nice story too!

[kat23]

I'd agree, Simple Men is the better of the two (though Unbelievable Truth is better still )

[theblairwitch]

(and none of the above are better than Trust )

[kat23]

Originally posted by theblairwitch
(and none of the above are better than Trust )

But can't get that on DVD

getting amateur and the book of life is not so easy given that most R1 importers source from canada you have to resort to amazon.com or some of the smaller ones to find them
Mind you Amateur is 4:3 on DVD and I'm not sure if this is a pan&scan job