The Fall
(2006/Umbrella Region Free Blu-ray Import)/A
Quiet Place In The Country (1971)/The
Music Lovers (1971/MGM Limited Edition Collection DVDs)
Picture:
B/C+/C+ Sound: B/C+/C+ Extras: C+/C-/C- Films: C+/C+/B-
PLEASE NOTE: The MGM Limited Edition DVDs are
available exclusively from Amazon through the right-hand sidebar of this site,
while The Fall import Blu-ray will operate
on all Blu-ray machines worldwide and this particular edition can be ordered
from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at
the end of the review.
When
films are at their best, they are richly visual and what follows are three
films that push the envelope in that respect to tell their narratives in more
innovative ways.
Tarsem’s The Fall (2006) is now available as a Region
Free Blu-ray from Umbrella in Australia
and it is the same HD master as this U.S. Sony Blu-ray we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7484/The+Fall+(Blu-ray/Sony/2006)
I am not
as big a fan of the film overall and the ratings reflect how I feel about both
Blu-ray editions, but it is a solid release and at least worth a look,
especially if you liked The Cell (2000)
which I liked better. Extras include WanderLust and Nostalgia featurettes and Deleted Scenes.
Elio
Petri is best known for The 10th
Victim (reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and tries to top
himself with A Quiet Place In The
Country (1971, aka Un Tranquillo Posto Di Campagna) about the strange
relationship and psychological battle between two characters played by Vanessa
Redgrave and Franco Nero. A theatrical
trailer is the only extra, but I warn you NOT to watch it before seeing the film
because it gives away the film, yet it might not be the only possibility of
where this is going. It may also be
cheating a bit to try to outdo the likes of Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966, reviewed elsewhere on this site) but this never
totally adds up or works even if it wants to be open-ended by the end or to
suddenly resolved after it attempt to challenge the audience. There are other things I did not buy about
it, but it deserves to be in print and this DVD release is long overdue and
Ennio Morricone’s score is a plus.
Finally
we have Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers
(1971), one of several ambitious biopic films of giants in classical music,
here with Richard Chamberlain as Peter Tchaikovsky in a love triangle that
subtly and boldly suggests his homosexuality or maybe bisexuality. Russell and screenplay writer Melvin Bragg do
change around some historic facts, but the idea is to be slowly submersed into
the world that made Tchaikovsky the man and artist he became. As fantastic as this film can be, it is never
over the top as Tommy and Lisztomania would be a few years later
as Russell used Glam Rock and the Rock Opera as an excuse to go for broke
visually, but this is solid filmmaking, Andre Previn handles the music expertly
and the supporting cats including Glenda Jackson, Christopher Gable, Max Adrian
and Kenneth Colley help deliver the intended experience and this too is a film
long overdue for an official release, especially since it was a big United
Artists release at the time. Once again,
a theatrical trailer is the only extra.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Quiet (originally
a dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor film, though this print does not always
demonstrate that) and 2.35 X 1 image on Lovers
are on par with each other, offering some softness and Video Black issues,
pressed as they are on DVD-Rs, but color can be impressive in both cases
despite that and disclaimers that they used the best sources they had. Both have Dolby Digital 2.0 sound mixes,
though Lovers is almost stereophonic
and being issued in 70mm blow-up prints off of the 35mm real anamorphic
Panavision shoot, was originally issued at its best in 6-track magnetic sound
to really show off the Tchaikovsky score.
Needless to say the film needs restoration for a future Blu-ray sometime
down the line. Quiet can be ironically harsh in its sound at times.
As noted
above, you can order The Fall
Blu-ray import exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
