360 [Blu-ray]

Director: Fernando Meirelles Fernando Meirelles

Overview

Director Fernando Meirelles (Blindness, The Constant Gardener) teams with screenwriters Peter Morgan and Peter Emmanuel Goldman to expand the scope of Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play +La Ronde, which explored the ways that social boundaries can be shattered by human sexuality. Set in seven cities across the globe, 360 finds a disparate group of characters unknowingly bonded by the sexual choices they make. Consumed by loneliness, a British businessman (Jude Law) ponders a rendezvous with a prostitute. When his colleague catches wind of the plan, blackmail enters the picture. Meanwhile, the businessman's wife (Rachel Weisz) prepares to call it quits with her younger lover; a Brazilian student breaks up with her boyfriend in London and heads back to Rio; a recovering alcoholic (Anthony Hopkins) travels to Phoenix in search of his missing daughter; a freshly paroled sex offender (Ben Foster) struggles to stay composed when propositioned in a Denver airport; and a prominent widower's religious devotion is put to a difficult test.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/06/2012
UPC:	0876964005074
Original Release:	2011
Rating:	R
Source:	Magnolia Home Ent
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:50:00
Sales rank:	34,854

Special Features

Coming Full Circle: The Making of 360; Behind the scenes Picture-in-Picture Comparisons; AXS TV: A Look at 360; Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jude Law	Michael Daly
Rachel Weisz	Rose
Ben Foster	Tyler
Marianne Jean-Baptiste	Fran
Dinara Drukarova	Valentina
Gabriela Marcinkova	Anna
Johannes Krisch	Rocco
Juliano Cazarré	Rui
Lucia Siposova	Mirka
Maria Flor	Laura
Vladimir Vdovichenkov	Sergei
Anthony Hopkins	Older Man
Moritz Bleibtreu	Salesman
Mark Ivanir	The Boss
Jamel Debbouze	Algerian Man

Technical Credits

Peter Morgan

Peter Emmanuel Goldman

Fernando Meirelles	Director,Executive Producer
Peter Morgan	Screenwriter,Executive Producer
Peter Emmanuel Goldman	Screenwriter
Emanuel Michael	Producer
Marc Missonier	Producer
Andrew Eaton	Producer
Chris Hanley	Producer
David Linde	Producer
Danny Kravsz	Producer
Olivier Delbosc	Producer
Graham Bradstreet	Executive Producer
Klaus Lintschinger	Executive Producer
Nikhil Sharma	Executive Producer
Tim Smith	Executive Producer
Christine Langan	Executive Producer
Paul Brett	Executive Producer
David Faigenblum	Executive Producer
Jordan Gertner	Executive Producer
Chris Contogouris	Executive Producer
Steven M. Gagnon	Executive Producer
Michael Winterbottom	Executive Producer
Arthur Schnitzler	Playwright
Stuart Wilson	Sound/Sound Designer
Moritz Fritsch	Sound/Sound Designer
Leo Davis	Casting
Marc Missonnier	Producer

Editorial Reviews

There are probably very few serious movie fans who haven't played the parlor game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", in which someone names an actor and the player has to connect that performer to Kevin Bacon through others he or she has worked with in six moves or less. (For example, if you were given Keanu Reeves, you could link him to Bacon in three moves -- Reeves and Dennis Hopper worked together in Speed, Hopper co-starred with Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider, and Nicholson appeared in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon.) The notion that folks with seemingly nothing in common can be linked by their shared acquaintances is hardly limited to the star of Apollo 13 and Mystic River; Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy first posited the sociological notion of "six degrees of separation" in 1929, and Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler followed the unlikely connections between ten people linked by their romantic partners in his drama La Ronde, which, since premiering in 1920, has prompted several direct film adaptations and inspired many other variations on the same theme. Director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Peter Morgan have revisited the concept of how love, friendship, and even casual acquaintances can bring people together in unexpected ways in the movie 360, but love and sex have only so much to do with the stories they tell in this film. 360 is more concerned with the tough and tricky choices people have to make as they figure out what's best for themselves and those around them. One character cites an old saying, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it," and that mix of the decisive and the uncertain is the key to this film. 360 doesn't have a traditional narrative framework; Meirelles and Morgan aren't telling one large story here, but instead they allow a number of small incidents to overlap one another as fate leads the characters down different paths. Mirka (Lucia Siposova) is an attractive but thick-skinned woman from Eastern Europe who throws in her lot with Rocco (Johannes Krisch), a Russian pimp who brokers "dates" for his women online. Mirka's younger sister Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova) is wary of Rocco, but she's loyal to Mirka and acts as her assistant. Mirka's first john is Michael (Jude Law), a British businessman visiting Germany; when a possible client discovers he's made arrangements to meet a hooker, Michael finds himself a victim of blackmail. Meanwhile, back in London, Michael's wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) is wracked with guilt as she tries to end her affair with Rui (Juliano Cazarre), a handsome photographer originally from Brazil. Rui, as it happens, is also being unfaithful, and when his longtime girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) finds out, she books a flight back home, feeling betrayed and out of sorts. On the flight, she strikes up a conversation with an older man (Anthony Hopkins) searching for his missing daughter, whose body may have been found in the United States. When their flight is grounded because of a snowstorm, Laura meets Tyler (Ben Foster), a fellow stranded passenger, and invites him back to her hotel room. What Laura doesn't know is that Tyler is a convicted sex offender who has just been released from prison and isn't sure if he's strong enough to overcome his criminal impulses. Meanwhile, the older man attends an AA meeting and crosses paths with Valentina (Dinara Drukarova), a Russian woman who is trapped in an unhappy marriage with Sergei (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), a driver and gunman for an expatriate crime kingpin based in Paris; she works as a dental hygienist, and feels ready to act on her attraction to her boss (Jamel Debbouze), although he's uncertain about becoming involved with a married woman. And Sergei is no happier with himself or his path in life, and he's pondering his next move when he meets Anna on a rainy afternoon. With his use of wipes, split screens, and a frequently roving camera, director Meirelles visually mirrors the constant movement of his characters and their penchant for happening upon one another at just the right (or wrong) time as fate plays with their circumstances, often in ways that betray our initial expectations. While Meirelles keeps 360 moving along at a pace that's brisk but also makes room for suspense and periodic self-analysis, what really makes the film engaging is the cast. Although it hops back and forth between different continents and languages, the director has drawn several affecting performances from these actors: Dinara Drukarova is genuinely moving as a woman struggling to find her heart and her joy; Anthony Hopkins is given a showy monologue but has the sense to play it without going overboard; Maria Flor makes Laura's actions seem fully understandable even if they're wildly ill-advised; Ben Foster's emotional agony is played con brio but still feels painfully real and honest; and Gabriela Marcinkova gives Anna an innocence that doesn't seem either foolish or naïve. Some of Morgan's screenplay seems a bit hard to swallow on close examination, as coincidences pile up on one another, but the fine work of the actors and Meirelles' striking visual sense (aided by the talents of cinematographer Adriano Goldman) more than compensate. 360 is a frequently fascinating examination of the broad palate of human behavior, and no matter how far you may be separated from these characters geographically, it's likely you'll find something here that will speak clearly to your own circumstances.