Alejandro
Jodorowsky: Fando Y Lis, El Topo and Holy Mountain
remasters (1968 - 1973/ABKCO Blu-ray Box Set*)/The
Ascent
(1977/Criterion Blu-ray)/Cold
Light Of Day
(1989/MVD Blu-ray/*both Arrow)/The
Interrogation
(2016**)/The
Last Vermeer
(2019/Sony DVD)/Let
Him Go
(2020/Universal Blu-ray)/Little
England
(2014/**both Corinth DVDs)
Picture:
B/B/B+/C/C+/B+/C+ Sound: B-/B-/B/C+/C+/B+/C+ Extras:
B+/B/B/D/C-/D/C- Films: B-/B-/B/B-/C+/C+/C+
Next
up are a large mix of dramatic and challenging films...
We
start with the massive new Blu-ray box set Alejandro
Jodorowsky: Fando Y Lis, El Topo and Holy Mountain
remasters (1968 - 1973)
including 4K scanned upgrades of the three films, looking and
sounding better than we could have imagined in our previous coverage
of the trilogy. You can read our previous thoughts and analysis of
the films at these links of their prior release on..
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10961/The+Films+Of+Alejandro+Jodorowsky
and
their first, earlier Blu-ray release
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11418/The+Films+Of+Alejandro+Jodorowsky+%E2%80%
I
admit I am not as big a fan of these three films as my fellow
writers, but they are important distinctive, challenging
counterculture films that were a key part of the era, created what
used to be known as the midnight movie (too racy and shocking for
normal theatrical screening hours) and actually were moneymaking
hits. John Lennon actually recommended them to the founder of ABKCO
Records and the rest is history.
Immediately,
Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini are the two filmmakers Jodorowsky
has his work compared to and that has validity, the surrealism is
there and so are the images of nudity, religion and a writerly
personal vision that just makes Jodorowsky an auteur. I would add
that he was just as much in the league of Andy Warhol and Pier Paolo
Pasolini for daring, alternative ideas and having something to say
and show by taking things further. Certainly, he is as deep in
examining religion (especially Catholicism and Christianity) as
Pasolini and has no problems with any sexuality. As a matter of
fact, sometimes, the nude images cease being sexual and become
something else.
At
first, like the other filmmakers, the images might seem random and
not add up to much, but Jodorowsky is being honest, showing things he
feels and sharing things to all that he could have easily kept to
himself. It was no easy task to bring these images to life,
especially in a pre-digital era, yet it is because they are organic,
real, exist in the physical world and cannot be cleaned of mortality,
dirty or blood that they add up and make all the more sense. They
have aged well as a result.
So
how much better can they look and sound now? On top of all the hard
restoration work that was done in the past for previous theatrical
and home video re-release, additional work has been done and then
scanned for 4K. Jodorowsky supervised it all and the results even
top the previous Blu-ray set. As we now have Ultra High Definition,
my rating might seem the same or lower than the previous writers'
coverage, but these do outdo the previous editions.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Fando
is a little warmer, Video Black a little darker (even inky at times)
and generally more convincing than the previous transfers, which were
not bad for their time, but do not have as convincing a Grey Scale as
we get here. I do not know if this was shot on Kodak, DuPont,
Ferrania, Agfa or Ansco film, but I like the look and was pleasantly
surprised by the upgrade.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on El
Topo
also is immediately warmer, with better color range, flesh tones and
clarity that makes it more convincing and you also get more detail
and depth. This is a solid example of how good old narrow-vision
'Academy Aperture' framing can look and Jodorowsky could have cared
less about any widescreen considerations. There might be a few minor
issues where the color is not as rich, but the film is in amazing
shape considering it was not preserved by a major studio with a ton
of money to spend.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Holy
Mountain
was shot in the 2-perforation Techniscope format, but not issued ion
any kind of dye-transfer Technicolor prints we could find out about
despite the company's Italian division inventing the format. At the
time, some would shoot this way, then issue the film as being shot in
'Chromoscope' or with another name to indicate it was being printed
in Eastmancolor or another film color stock that was not as advanced
as Technicolor. We can see the same improvements and slight flaws as
El
Topo,
but this is still one of the few films in Techniscope to make it to
Blu-ray to this day!
Some
films in the format (The
Ipcress File,
American
Graffiti,
THX-1138,
The Man With No Name Trilogy) have not quite looked correct on
Blu-ray, while others (Slaughterhouse
Five,
Once
Upon A Time In The West,
the two Cushing Dr.
Who
films, Robinson
Crusoe On Mars)
fared much better and look how well they should. The smaller
negatives give you more grain, but the filmmakers who knew better did
not let that get in the way and even used it to their advantage, as
is the case here, which succeeds like the few latter examples that
look visually correct in their mastering. This is as good as any of
them to date, making it as impressive as it is accurate, so it feels
more palpable and naturalistic as a result and the color is
impressive.
All
three offer DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless sound and both El
Topo
and Holy
Mountain
also have DTS-MA 5.1 upgrades and I preferred those upgrade sin those
cases, especially since the mono sound on Topo
sounds too boxy for me, while the mono-only Fando
is fine for its age and time. I am glad they did not try to do a 7.1
or 11.1 upgrade, because that would have been really pushing it.
These are films that use their sound sparingly too, so 5.1 is about
as far as one would want to go here. I do not think these will ever
sound better, which is confirmed by how good they sound as compared
to their CD soundtrack counterparts, which also sound fine.
As
for the extras (pictured in the image accompanying this review), they
are massive and save for a restoration featurette, everything
released on the previous sets are here, then much, much more is
added, as the press release explains so well:
LIMITED
EDITION CONTENTS
Limited
edition 80-page hardbound book featuring new writing on the films by
Virginie Selavy, Michael Atkinson, Bilge Ebiri, Mark Pilkington and
archival articles
FANDO
Y LIS
EL
TOPO
THE
HOLY MOUNTAIN
PSYCHOMAGIC,
A HEALING ART
That's
one of the most impressive sets of any kind we have seen lately and
will impress the most hardened film fan. I thought Psychomagic
was interesting, but not in the league of the other films and is more
of a special interest project. We have also covered Santa
Sangre
before on this site, but will wait for the actual 4K disc to say
more, but since the last release of this trilogy, a great documentary
was issued on the director's sadly failed attempt to film the Frank
Herbert book Dune.
You can read more about that at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12860/Jodorowsky's+Dune+(2014/Sony+Blu-ray+w/DVD
Lauris
Shepitko's
The
Ascent
(1977) is one of our first releases here on WWII and the Nazis,
starting with two partisans in Nazi-occupied Belorussia (Boris
Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin) looking for food in the terrible
winter snow when they encounter some Nazis who try immediately to
capture and kill them. They try to escape, but run into some trouble
as they get away, which leads them to a family's house.
From
there, it is a matter of if they can survive, who they can avoid and
what will they do as things get slowly worse and worse. The final
film of an underrated (and female!!!!) Soviet filmmaker, Shepitko was
trying to deal with moral ambiguity and what kind of choices one
faces in a gutted world, a theme as relevant as ever.
Though
we have seen this often since, it was still newer and fresher then as
world cinema was still just getting a grip on how bad the Nazis and
Axis powers had ruined the world and how so much of the damage was
permanent for so many. It took longer for highly-censored Soviet
Cinema to deal with it and this is one of the key films that did so.
Good thing it was a critical success and is now back in this restored
edition.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer rarely shows the age of the materials used and was shot on
Svema 35mm monochrome film, presented here in a 4K scan from the
original 35mm camera negative. This is maybe the best example of
this film stock you can now see and it has some nice depth and
detail. It also makes for an interesting comparison to black and
white digital HD shooting today, as well as more common black &
white films form Kodak, Ansco, Ferrania, Fuji and Agfa, the latter of
which may have influenced this stock.
The
PCM Mono sound comes from the original optical soundmaster and sounds
pretty good for its age, but mono sound was still very common and the
original Star
Wars
had only opened the year of this film. Sound effects and music are
well implemented and impressive.
Extras
give us a fine portrait of the director and include a paper pullout
on the film including an essay by poet Fanny Howe, while the disc
adds a new selected-scene commentary featuring film scholar Daniel
Bird, New video introduction by Anton Kliimov, son of director Larisa
Shepitko and filmmaker Elem Klimov, New interview with actor Lyudmila
Polyakova, The
Homeland of Electricity,
a 1967 short film by Shepitko, Larisa, a 1980 short film tribute to
his late wife by Klimov, Two documentaries from 2012 about Shepitko's
life, work, and relationship with Klimov and a program from 1999
featuring an interview with Shepitko.
From
writer-director Fhiona-Louise, the quite interesting award winning
serial killer thriller Cold
Light of Day
(1989) gets a quite nice restoration on Blu-ray disc courtesy of
Arrow Films. The widely unseen British film tells the complicated
life of serial killer Dennis Nilsen (based on a true story) who was
active in early 1980s and liked to clog his drains with the remains
of his human victims... the film isn't without its shocking moments
and is more effective than other films of the like I've seen.
The
film stars Bob Flag, Claire King, Keith Hamilton Cobb, and Steve
Munroe to name a few.
Cold
Light of Day
is presented in 1080p high definition Blu-ray with an MPEG-4 AVC
codec and a full frame aspect ratio of 1.33 X 1 with a lossless
English LPCM 2.0 Mono mix. This is a new 2K restoration of the film
from the original 16mm camera negative approved by the Director and
looks quite nice here in this release. Some parts of the film feel
like a TV movie and while others feel a bit darker. Still, this is
definitely the best this film has ever looked.
Special
Features:
Brand
new audio commentary with writer/director Fhiona-Louise
Brand
new audio commentary with film historians/writers Dean Brandum and
Andrew Nette
Newly-filmed
interview with actor Martin Byrne-Quinn
Newly-filmed
interview with actor Steve Munroe
Original
Cold
Light of Day
promo film made to raise financing for the feature
Re-Release
Trailer
Two
short films starring Cold
Light of Day
director Fhiona-Louise and photographed by Star
Wars
DP David Tattersall, newly restored in HD: Metropolis
Apocalypse
(1988, 11 mins) and Sleepwalker (1993, 2 mins)
Reversible
sleeve featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Gilles
Vranckx
Limited
Edition Die-cut O-card
and
Limited Edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film
by Jo Botting and a look at how the press reported Dennis Nilsen's
real-life crimes by Jeff Billington
This
is a pretty good serial killer film that's recommendable particularly
in this nice release from Arrow Video.
Erez
Pery's The
Interrogation
(2016) is a dark film about the 1946 capture of one of the worst of
all Nazis, Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoss. He ran the infamous,
horrific Auschwitz concentration camp. The captured Nazi is then
questioned and requestioned with the goal of finding out anything
that will help the investigation and capture of other Nazis, but
especially to get a confession to add to the proof that the murders
and very Holocaust happened, which is vital as they knew then there
would be Holocaust deniers and they were more correct than they would
have ever dreamed of.
The
film itself wants to add to the record, authenticate that the probing
happened, how it happened and how vital it was. That it is a film
from Israel completes what feels like a long journey for the truth
about this genocide and names one of the worst men in history, a name
that should be as well-known as Hitler and is not, yet. I was glad
this film was made and adds a key undertold story about the many
horrors of WWII.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image can be a little soft, though
at least some of this is due to style, while the multi-lingual PCM
2.0 Stereo sounds fine for a dialogue-based, talk-intensive film.
There
are no extras.
Dan
Friedkin's The
Last Vermeer
(2019) is a post-WWII tale of valuable paintings by the artist
Johannes Vermeer, apparently liberated from Nazi looting, but some
people are not so sure. Han van Meegeren (Guy Pierce) is happy to
sell them and back their authenticity, but still lands up needing a
lawyer (Claes Bang) to defend him when some people think they are
fakes. This is even when some experts think otherwise.
Of
course, we have seen plenty of films about Nazi loot, including
paintings and it even comes up in passing in some films (the Nazis
plan out loud what they will steal at the mansion in Ivory's Remains
Of the Day,
rightly assuming their British hosts do not understand the German
language. The results of this film are not bad, but not great at 118
minutes with its single mystery: are the paintings real or not.
Ridley Scott produced the decent film that has its ups and downs, but
is not bad, but they could have done more in the time they had here.
The actors help make it worth look for those interested.
Also
issued on Blu-ray in an edition we hope to see soon, this DVD is in
an anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image that looks as good as it
can for the format, especially one dealing with artworks and complex
uses of color, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is as good as it
can be for the old codec, but it sounds like we are not hearing the
full range of the soundmaster.
Trailers
are the only extras.
Let
Him Go
(2020) is
a nicely made drama starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, who live a
quiet life in the mountains with their adult son and his wife and
baby boy. But when their son dies in a tragic horse related
accident, and years later pass. Their son's widowed wife gets
remarried and their son is a few years older, however, the man she
marries is a complete scumbag. Now it's up to Costner and Lane to
get their grandchild back into safe hands at any cost.
The
film also stars Jeffrey Donovan, Booboo Stewart, Lesley Manville, and
Will Brittain with direction by Thomas Bezucha (The
Family Stone).
Let
Him Go
is presented in 1080p high definition with an MPEG-4 AVC codec and a
widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and lossless English DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) mix, both of which are up to par
for the format. Though it would definitely look better on 4K UHD
disc, the presentation here is crisp and pushes the boundaries of
what Blu-ray can offer. The film is shot beautifully and has a
sweeping score that helps give it that big budget feel.
No
extras.
Let
Him Go
is a decent drama with some strong performances that's worth checking
out if you're a fan of either star. The film itself isn't horrible
and feels at some times forced and a bit like Oscar bait.
Finally,
we have Pantelis Voulgaris'
Little
England
(2014) about a young woman who fall in love with a man who works on
the title ship before WWII starts up. Set on the Greek island of
Andros, it is a fine-looking melodrama that may offer some things we
have seen before (the mother is married to such a man and objects to
the relationship out of fear it will not work out) and the film is a
little long at 132 minutes, but enough here was interesting and the
locales and Greek culture portrayed is something you usually see in
lite ways when Greeks and Greece come up on film that I was happy to
see this despite obvious items and a little predictability.
Greece
is turing out interesting films, but we are simply not seeing enough
of them imported.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image looks good, something I have
noticed many Greek productions offering, while the lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono is also well recorded and mixed enough to enjoy,
though this is subtitled.
Trailers
are the only extras.
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Day,
Him)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
