Regret is a big issue dealt within the Oscar-nominated ATONEMENT, which arrived on DVD this week. Thus, the latest edition of This Weekend’s Film Festival collects five films that deal with the issue of remorse. Like ATONEMENT, several of this week’s films address the issue of regret held over from actions in a character’s youth. How much responsibility does the “adult you” have for mistakes the “child you” committed? Again like ATONEMENT, others deal with the regret that comes in lost loves. Life and death choices also lead to lifelong regret in several of the films as well. Thrillers and dramas fill this week’s lineup, which I’m sure you won’t regret watching.

Love and regret go hand and hand so often in art. Few films deal with this subject as powerfully as Wim Wenders’ PARIS, TEXAS. To begin, Travis, in a classic performance from Harry Dean Stanton, is found wondering in the desert. He’s lost physically and metaphorically. His brother Walt, played wonderfully by Dean Stockwell, picks him up. He been gone for four years, and ever since Walt and his wife have been taking care of Travis’ son Hunter, who was dropped off by Travis’ estranged wife Jane, who is played in a short, but searing, performance from Nastassja Kinski. Written by Sam Shepard, the story slowly reveals details about the characters as it goes along. Why did Travis disappear? Where is Jane? Is it better for Hunter to stay with his new family or be with his biological parents? All these issues are infused with the guilt of the characters, especially Travis, who longs for a lost life that he ruined. At one point, Travis and Hunter will head out in search of Jane. As I said in my original review, “One of the best road movies ever made — the film stays with you after it’s done and leaves you with feelings of both sadness and joy.”

For Saturday, the first film is Kasi Lemmons’ EVE’S BAYOU. Told as a memory from an older version of the title character, this haunting drama begins with Eve declaring that she murdered her father, Louis, played in a typically great performance from Samuel L. Jackson. Performed by Jurnee Smollett, Eve is a young girl desperate for her well-respected doctor father’s attention. But so are her older sister Cisely (Megan Good) and his wife Roz (Lynn Whitfield). See Louis is a philanderer and everyone knows it, except for Eve, who is astonished when she catches him with another woman. The Louisiana setting and voodoo history in Eve’s family only adds to the sexual tension and mystery of the story. As I said in my original review, “No character will escape the film without regrets… As old secrets are revealed and new ones form, EVE’S BAYOU will have surprises one cannot expect.” Childhood naiveté and misunderstandings, just like in ATONEMENT, will affect a great deal of lives in this film. Eve’s confession that starts the film is true, but not for the reasons one might first think.

How would you feel if you kept receiving long, uncut videotapes of the front of your house? This is the setup for the second Saturday film, Michael Haneke’s CACHE. This tense thriller from France also deals with the guilt carried over from childhood; only this time it’s guilt resurfaced by the hurt party. Georges (Daniel Auteuil) has secrets that he is keeping from his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) and son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). These secrets and why he is keeping them play a key role in the psychological debate that this film conjures up. Like the previous two films in the lineup, jealousy played a huge role in why people did the things they did. Georges had probably forgotten about his past transgressions, until they were brought to light again. Tthey are painful, making him reassess who he is and what he did. But what responsibility does he have? As I said in my original review, “Many unanswered questions remain at the end and new questions spring forth from the sly closing shot, which plays different for each individual depending on what they see in it. It’s the kind of film you want to talk about afterward, devising theories on whodunit to the political themes to simply what it all means.”

The title of the opening Sunday film hints at the regret that its title character endures on a daily basis. SOPHIE’S CHOICE is a story about a woman coping with the guilt of an unthinkable choice she was forced to make, and the young writer who learns harsh lessons about life from his relationship with that woman. Sophie, played in a remarkable performance from Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, often drowns herself in booze and frivolity to obliterate her past. She lives for the day with her intense lover Nathan (Kevin Kline). Stingo (Peter MacNicol) is the young Southern wannabe writer who has moved to New York to meet people just like Sophie and Nathan, who are like characters straight out of the novels of his hero Thomas Wolfe. But as Sophie opens up to him, he will learn that life in not always fun and games. Love can be complicated, and very painful. As I said in my original review, “World War II was a time of suffering and unthinkable moral compromise. How do you cope when you are forced by evil people to make choices that make you lose your humanity?” This is at the core of what SOPHIE’S CHOICE asks. Heartbreaking and gripping, few films so powerfully capture the scope of regret as well as this film does.

To close this week’s festival, ATONEMENT also deals with the life-altering effects of regret. Briony Tallis, played in an Oscar-nominated performance from Saoirse Ronan, is a young girl who witnesses an intimate moment between her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and the gardener Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), which will taint her perspective and lead her to make choices that lead to the destruction of all their lives. As I said in my original review, the various points of view are all addressed, which “becomes crucial in the end when the story presents us a new perspective on what has come before, giving us a profound new way of looking at regret and our inability to truly apologize for our greatest and most harmful transgressions.” Briony will be seen at three stages of life ‑ a young girl, a 20-something nurse (Romola Garai), and an old woman (Vanessa Redgrave). The older versions of the character struggle with their guilt and try to make amends in different ways for what they did when they were 13. Like SOPHIE’S CHOICE, ATONEMENT poignantly deals with our ability and inability to deal with our past mistakes. Briony will spend the remainder of her life trying to make up for the great pain she caused by one selfish decision that has a way of lingering over every major decision she makes from that point forward.

So that concludes another thought-provoking edition of This Weekend’s Film Festival. So please post whether the picks made you regret listening to me or not regret a moment of the time you invested. Okay, I’ll stop with the regret puns. Despite, the heavy subject there is a great deal of love and joy in this lineup and I hope you enjoy it. So it’s time to head out to the video store, update the rental queue or check out Zap2It.com for TV listings.