Chicken With Plums (2011/Sony DVD)/A Late Quartet (2012/Fox Blu-ray)/Wunderkinder (2011/Umbrella Region 4 PAL Import DVD)
Picture: C+/B-/C+ Sound: C+/B/C+ Extras: B-/C-/C- Films: C+/C/C+
PLEASE NOTE: The Wunderkinder DVD is a Region 4 import
PAL DVD, will only play on machines capable of such encoded discs and can be
ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address
provided at the end of the review.
The idea
of the arts in cinema has always spoke to high culture and allegedly denotes a
pathway to better living, though that path can get distorted and three new
releases, different as they can be, are all tied together by this theme and
specifically string instruments.
Marjane
Satrapi and Vincent Parnnaud (Persepolis) are back with a thoughtful, creative comedy
in Chicken With Plums (2011) taking
place in Iran,
but is more of an international film than you might think. Nasser-Ali (Mathieu Amalric of Quantum Of Solace) is a musician
trapped in an unhappy marriage and in need of a new violin. When his smart(er?) brother tells him the
remarkable chance to buy a Stradivarius violin at a distant shop, he takes a
bus ride there, even if he has to bring his hyperactive young son. Looks like the violin is the real article, but
once he plays it, he intends to kill himself in less than a week!
Why? The film uses a elliptical narrative to show
us the real love of his life, how his mother (Isabella Rossellini) pushes him
into the marriage he lands up in (his wife is really nice, it is just they
should not be together and it has ruined both of them) and along with some
sometimes funny sides, this off-the-wall comedy drama has its moments and shows
the Satrapi/Parnnaud team to be one of the few directing teams outside of The
Coen Brothers who should be working together.
However,
though this is a fine work, it is too over the top too often and the makers may
have been too ambitious. Still, there
are some great scenes and big laughs that make it worth a look and I look
forward to the next Satrapi/Parnnaud release, surreal or not, because at least
they take risks.
Extras
include a feature length Satrapi/Parnnaud vying between two languages and a fun
Satrapi/Parnnaud Tribeca Q&A appearance for the film.
Yaron
Zilberman’s A Late Quartet (2012) is
an outright drama with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Christopher
Walken and Mark Ivanir as a longtime string quartet on the verge of breaking
up. The first two players are married,
Walken is having health issues and the remaining partner is teaching the
couple’s daughter how to play… and more than just instruments.
I liked
the set up, the locales and acting, but it is just that we have seen too much
of this before, though the cast is top rate and the film is musically sound all
around. The result of the viewing is
that a great scene is followed by one or two that are too familiar and that is
the pace of the entire 106 minutes. I
just wish this had been shortened or expanded with scenes that tired to say and
do more. Otherwise, fans of Classical
Music and the actors here at least will want to see this one. A Making Of featurette called Discord & Harmony: Creating A Late
Quartet is the only extra.
Marcus O.
Rosenmuller’s Wunderkinder (2011) is
a yet another tale of music and The Holocaust, but with a twist. The title means child prodigy and of the
three we have here, two are Jewish, but all of them are in the Soviet Union as
war is about to break out from Hitler violating his non-aggression treaty (one
of his biggest mistakes) with Stalin. A
well done drama, the change of locale is a plus and gives us an idea of the
similarities and some differences in how this comes to being and works out.
The film
is told in flashback, which is too safe an approach for me, but there is also
overlap with so many other films on the subject (Polanski’s The Pianist is a recent obvious
example) and the script does not get into how Russia is and the USSR was the
most anti-Jewish/Anti-German country around, though some would debate to what
extents. Still, the acting is great,
music fine and points of the story honest.
I was not
familiar with any of the actors, but they are very good, the film always seems
like the period it portrays and that makes Wunderkinder
worth going out of your way for. A theatrical
trailer is the only extra.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 AVC @ 22 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer on Late Quartet is the best of the three
releases here in playback quality, though it has some softness and motion blur
here and there. The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Plums and
1.85 X 1 PAL image on Wunderkinder
can be soft and have some softness issues, but are pretty good considering the
format and would both likely look better on Blu-ray.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Late is by far the best of the three films here sonically with
well-recorded music and a surprisingly consistent soundfield, while the lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on the DVDs of not have the soundfields I would have
liked them to have and also have sound that is towards the front speakers a bit
more than expected, but they both have fine surround moments and wondered how
much better they could sound in lossless audio presentations. Needless to say all three productions are
professional all around.
As noted above, you can order the import DVD version of Wunderkinder exclusively from Umbrella
at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo