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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Class Division > Violence > Working Class > Crime > Gangster > Farming > Belgium > Bullhead (2011/Drafthouse/Image Blu-ray)

Bullhead (2011/Drafthouse/Image Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B     Extras: B     Film: B

 

 

A remarkable film that competed with Holland’s In Darkness (reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, Michael R. Roskam’s Bullhead (2011) is an impressive, bold Belgium feature film debut about the title character really named Jacky (a great performance by Matthais Schoenaerts) who is alone, unhappy and working a farm with his parents and brother.  They have been getting by, but crime and corruption is around them, including organized criminals involved in illegal hormone sales to fatten farm animals.

 

That is only the beginning for them, but years ago, there was an ugly incident that made a shaky situation that much worse and Jacky is most affected by it, yet he continues to hold himself together.  However, when a local police officer he and his family (among others) were friends with is killed in an obvious political/criminal assassination, it will be the return of the repressed across the board and the local police (the ones not corrupt) intend to get to the bottom of the situation.

 

I do not want to ruin anything so I will not reveal much else, but this is nothing as compared to what happens in the film with its brutal honesty, sense of pure cinema, fine directing, great cast & acting and amazing and ever-rarer screenplay consistency (written by Roskam as well) and loosely based on actual chemical criminal activity in the area this was made in the 1990s.  This is not some history lesson, but a film, that takes us somewhere we have not exactly been before and is a mature, well realized work that should have found a much, much larger audience in the U.S. than it did.

 

Drafthouse, who recently released the wacky amusing The FP (reviewed elsewhere on this site) has wisely picked up this film and issued it in a top rate Blu-ray.  A throwback to the gritty realism of 1970s urban cinema, Bullhead is a must-see film for anyone serious about serious filmmaking.  I hope this home video release becomes a surprise hit, because sooner or later, true film fans need to and will catch up with this great work.  If you can handle such a film, see it now!!!

 

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer has the footage taking place in current time a little softened, slightly dark, stylized and flashback footage clearer, cleaner and more naturalistic.  Despite being artistic choices by Director Roskam and Director of Photography Nicolas Karakatsanis (who also lensed his short The One Thing To Do) deliver a look that makes sense and creates an atmosphere, but it is still soft at the edges and I have to hold it accountable for that.  That also means I do not think this could look better on Blu-ray as this the intent of the image shot on the underrated Aaton Penelope, a 35mm camera that also has an HD output.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix fares better with a consistent soundfield, fine recording overall, good use of music (not overdone, down to the Raf Keunen score) and warm enough to be palpable even with ambience and dialogue-based scenes.  This integrates well with the image.

 

Extras include a nicely illustrated 16-page booklet on the film including informative text and essay on the film by Director Michael Mann, plus a slip of paper is included to access Digital Copy, while the disc adds a feature length audio commentary track by Roskam, Theatrical Trailer, Roskam’s aforementioned 2005 short The One Thing To Do and two interview segments: one with Roskam, the other with lead actor Schoenaerts.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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