Home (2009/Kino Lorber Blu-ray) + Mercy (2009/IFC/MPI DVD) + My Brilliant Career (1979/Blue Underground Blu-ray) + Sex & Lucia (2001/Unrated/Palm Pictures Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B- (Mercy: C)     Sound: B-/C+/C+/B-     Extras: C+/C/B-/C+     Films: B-/C/B-/C+

 

 

Since the boy/girl relationship film is the oldest and tiredest kind of filmmaking, rarely do any such films make any waves.  Blue Valentine recently received the first NC-17 rating since Kubrick’s underrated last film Eyes Wide Shut (1999, reviewed elsewhere on this site), so when four films in that area arrived at the same time, I thought it worth grouping them to study what is the most common of melodramas.

 

I will start with Ursula Meier’s Home (2009), a rare film about family and the domestic situation by a woman, a romance of sorts in progress (from Switzerland) of a couple (Isabelle Huppert of I Heart Huckabees, Heaven’s Gate, The Piano Teacher and Olivier Gourmet of The Son, La Promesse) are happy where they live and have their residence in the middle of nowhere so no one can bother them and they can raise their three children any way they want.  Suddenly, the nearby town intends to mow them out of existence for a highway road, but they would rather be left alone.

 

The tale has hints of the Western and Huppert’s connection to Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) may be a sly innertextual reference, but the film stands on its own with a slightly deconstructionist style that has some slightly dark humor to it and the performances are not bad all around.  However, the final result is a little uneven and some may get lost in issues having to do with European Union rules in doing this, though you can assume some of that has been thrown out for cinematic license.  Still, it is worth a look for what does work and the interesting chemistry here in dealing with how the relationships (including husband/wife) work to at least some extent.

 

Extras include stills, Theatrical Trailer, on camera Meier/Cinematographer Agnes Godard interview and Meier’s short film Sleepless.

 

 

Mercy (2009) was produced and stars Scott Caan and though he had Patrick Hoelck direct, it is very much his film, which begins with his writer character Johnny celebrating a new novel that most critics like, but at the party for its success, he meets the title character (a most compelling Wendy Glenn) who he becomes very interested in.  However, she has a secret and he is in denial of how much he likes her.  At first, this played as a realistic, intelligent film about relationships, but it takes a bad turn in the middle and quickly deteriorates into another formula mumblecore independent film where the characters talk at each other instead of to each other or about anything, while scenes with real-life father James Caan as his film father are too talky, ineffective and a mid-film device of him writing his next book about the events backfires, ruining what was a very promising work.  Dylan McDermott, the underrated Erika Christensen and Troy Garrity also star and extras include Deleted Scenes of some interest, Trailer, Behind The Scenes photos and a feature length audio commentary by Scott Caan and Hoelck.

 

 

We looked at the edited R-rated version of Sex & Lucia (2001) years ago, which you can read more about at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/264/Sex+&+Lucia+(R-rated+cut)

 

Catching up to the unrated version finally, I am still not as impressed as my fellow writer, there is no doubt Paz Vega is sexy and this has some good moments, but I always thought this was overrated because the NC-17 territory does not offer as much as it could have.  However, if you have never seen it, see this uncut version only.  Extras repeat the behind the scenes/making of piece on the DVD, plus also offers stills, Cast Biographies, Soundtrack Excerpts and Theatrical Trailers.

 

 

Finally there is My Brilliant Career, which is the best of the four films here with a decent romance between Judy Davis (in the role that made her an international star) as Sybylla Melvyn and Sam Neill (before his worldwide big screen success) as Harry Beecham, writer and possible suitor who may be compatible in a world that is too overly conformist for its own good.  I like the performances, the pace and this is better than most of the stuff, turn-of-the-last-century films Australia was making outside of Oz-Ploitation films.  Though it has some predictability, it just passes Mercy’s first half as the best, most layered portrayal of a relationship of the four releases here.  Extras include The Miles Franklin Story featurette, Interview with Producer Margaret Fink, Interview with Director Gillian Armstrong (in what is still pretty much her best film to date), feature length audio commentary by Armstrong, Theatrical Trailers and the Cannes Film Festival Premiere with Davis, Armstrong and Fink.

 

 

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 (1.85 X 1 on Home) digital High Definition image on the three Blu-rays all disappoint on some level, with Home shot on 35mm film, Lucia in an older HD format and Career in older 35mm film.  Home is soft from its stylizing, Lucia from its dated format and Career from the low budget shoot.  I could not imagine any of them looking better than they do here, but maybe Career could have some more work done on it down the line.  The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Mercy was shot in the Super 16mm format, but is more degraded than it needs to be and the result is playback that suffers a good bit.  Hope a future Blu-ray looks better.  Director of Photography Donald McAlpine on Career found this film transforming his career from key Australian films (Adventures Of Barry McKenzie, Don’s Party, Patrick, Breaker Morant, Puberty Blues; see them elsewhere on this site) to larger Hollywood fare (Predator, Parenthood, Patriot Games, The Edge) and as a soft style typical of period pieces trying to evoke the period, so part of the softness is on purpose.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless mixes on the three Blu-rays show the sonic limits of each film, with Career overly stretched to a 7.1 mix (it also has Dolby Digital 5.1 EX!) and was originally monophonic.  The other two are DTS-MA 5.1 (Lucia even adds PCM 2.0 Stereo) and they sound the best of the four titles here.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Mercy is also weak and dialogue-based, but I wondered if a lossless track would have sounded better.

 

All are ambitious works, even when they don’t work.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo