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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Kidnapping > Terrorism > Philippines > Politics > French > Abduction > Canada > Filmmaking > Prostit > Captive (2012/First Run DVD)/The Captive (2013/A24/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Every Man For Himself (1980 aka Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Criterion Blu-ray)

Captive (2012/First Run DVD)/The Captive (2013/A24/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Every Man For Himself (1980 aka Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Criterion Blu-ray)


Picture: C/B/B Sound: C+/B/B Extras: D/C+/B Films: C+/C+/B



Here are some import films, old and new, about people stuck in situations that are not as easy to escape as it may seem and not always because of kidnapping.



Brilliante Mendoza's Captive (2012) is a drama based on a real kidnapping incident in the Philippines that happened around the time of the events of 9/11/01 with a group claiming to be related to Osama bin Laden grabbing 20 guests at a hotel in the southern part of the country. Isabelle Huppert is among them and gives a solid performance as a social worker helping out an older missionary woman, but she'll need everything she can to survive the often ugly situation as they are taken on a crowded boat as Filipino forces quickly realize the abduction and go after them to save them.


The film wants to be a study of the situation, message that various kidnappings are still going on in the country (among many, of course) and reveal this untold story that got lost in the shadow to he U.S. attacks. It is well-done, but despite some good casting, directing, writing and use of locales, becomes repetitive and predictable, yet I liked some scenes enough to have you give it a look if interested.


There are unfortunately no extras.



Atom Egoyan's The Captive (2013) is the latest of a more specific cycle of kidnapping and imprisonment of people, especially children as child exploitation remains a worldwide problem, but this one has us dealing with the subtly dark sides of people similar to who we have met in previous Egoyan films. Ryan Reynolds is the good father whose daughter is nabbed when he goes to a local diner to get them food for just a few minutes and she goes missing for years. He is devastated, keeps looking and does not stop hoping to find her despite a marriage going bad with an angry wife, then he becomes a suspect... naturally, though we know he did not do it.


Instead, we are given the information early and how this is being hidden in a sick way, but we also find out early on the kidnappers have abducted one of the two investigators (Rosario Dawson), which makes her partner (Scott Speedman) even angrier. This one also has its moments, but also its predictability while trying to be a character study of the situation. However, it too falls short including having one of the kidnappers be a female criminal (Christine Horne) looking like she is imitating Annie Lennon in early Eurythmics music videos (think Love Is A Stranger and Who's That Girl in particular), though that should have made things creepier instead of oddball. Bruce Greenwood, Kevin Durand and Alexia Fast also star.


Extras include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds a feature length audio commentary track by Egoyan, 'Captive Thoughts' featurette, Deleted Scenes and an Alternate Ending that I thought was worse than the problematic one they settled with.



Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man For Himself (1980) is the French New Wave director's return to full length 'regular' filmmaking after a series of film's made to be political, left-wing, subversive, experimental and capture the rise of the left in the 1960s onward as group efforts that tried to loose his autueristic mark on his filmmaking, followed by a series of similarly-themed visual experiments using then-new videotape. After those cycles and the defeat of the Left worldwide by the end of the 1970s, Godard returned with his possibly his angriest, crudest, most defiant film as if he had to be dragged back into the filmmaking he began with. The revolution was over as he saw it, but he had much to say and show, joined by writer Jean-Claude Carriere (a Luis Bunuel alumnus) with an anger-filled work from the first scene in the Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeois mode.


It starts with a man who happens to be a TV filmmaker named Paul Godard (Jacques Dutronc, perhaps a surrogate for Godard's TV period ended unhappily) who is stalked and sexually harassed by a hotel bellhop who wants to be sexually assaulted by Godard just to be a part of him! Sexual violation is the same as all violation in this film and that anger extends to every scene, emphasized by Godard's use of slow motion for the first time in any film in his career. Then there is the ironic love triangle between he, his ex-girlfriend (Nathalie Baye, whose character rides a bike a long distance throughout the film) and a prostitute (it would not be a Godard film without one we gather) who has a mind of her own (Isabelle Huppert again, who also played a hooker with a difference in Cimino's Heaven's Gate (also 1980, also on Criterion Blu-ray) in an underrated performance) with violent pimps not far away.


Yes, he shoots the love scenes like murders and vice versa, but instead of like Hitchcock, this is more about being and isolated senses of feeling than suspense or mystery as if it were his answer to Ingmar Bergman, but much angrier still. For the great cast and all the new things Godard does here, the film is a mixed bag and his first non-Leftist/experimental film since Weekend (1967, reviewed on Criterion Blu-ray elsewhere on this site), so it might be fair to think of it as the worst Monday back to work in cinema history. However, some moments meant to be sincere become unintentionally campy and what worked in the 1960s falls flat here, though I think he knows this in some instances and goes forward on purpose bitterly.


I did not and never expect a 'happy' film by Godard, but this one is concerned with the state of the world going rotten after a chance to make better changes. It is ironic this arrived the same year as Heaven's Gate, the peak of sexually explicit XXX cinema (think Caligula) and the end of director's having free reign to innovate at the major studios. He would find himself retreating to independent production like most of his fellow auteurs (Cimino, Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, even Friedkin) in what has continued to be a surprisingly fruitful, enduring and even bold string of films that have persevered against the many changes (not always for the better) in world cinema to where he has made an acclaimed 3D movie as this 35+ year-old film makes it to Blu-ray.


Sex and the unusual use of sound, followed by the unusual use of image is consistent throughout as Godard tries to make a new start of it by marking things with a new, darker approach. This runs a tight 87 minutes, not always pleasant, but necessary to point out deeper evils for which the rest of his career has been ready to attack head-on boldly, fearlessly and continuously. Godard had to learn the hard way only he could have his revolution, as long as he conducted it single-handedly, right, wrong... or left...


Extras include a nicely illustrated paper foldout on the film including informative text and Amy Taubin essay, while the Blu-ray adds a two-episode interview Godard did for the release of the film on The Dick Cavett Show, an excellent video essay on the film and Godard by ace film scholar Colin McCabe, the 1979 short film Godard made to get this feature film financed, new video interviews with Huppert & Producer Marin Karmitz, archival interviews with Baye, composer Gabriel Yared and co-Directors of Photography Renato Berta & William Lubtchansky, the Original Theatrical Trailer and short film Godard 1980 by Jon Jost, Donald Ranvaud & Peter Wollen.



The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Captive 2012 is a good, consistent shoot, but this is just a little too soft throughout with more than a few aliasing errors, but the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Captive 2013 is solid throughout as you would expect from an Egoyan film at this point. Color is consistent and definition not bad, even with a little style chosen as part of it all.


The 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Man is a new HD scan from the original 35mm camera negative and the film hardly ever shows its age with nice detail, depth and color throughout. It may not be spectacular all the time, but is the best the film has looked just about anywhere since its original release.


The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound on Captive 2012 is better than the image, but lacks surrounds as the audio transfer is a little weak, but the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Captive 2013 is well mixed and presented despite being too quiet and refined at times to take total advantage of the multi-channel possibilities. Ambiance is always present however and the recording is solid. The surprise is in the PCM 2.0 Mono on Man sounding surprisingly strong with advanced sound design, smart ambiance, good detail and depth for its age from the original optical 35mm soundmaster. This is one of the best modern mono mixes on Blu-ray anywhere.



- Nicholas Sheffo


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