Mana – Beyond Belief
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Feature: C+
Where
does the line between the glorious and banal break down? In many places as the Peter Friedman/Roger
Manley film Mana – Beyond Belief
(2005) shows. We have seen films from
directors like Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke with interesting editing,
juxtapositions and shooting worldwide.
The duo went to five continents for this one, ranging from Elvis
impersonators to religious icons to other kinds of icons. So what does it all mean?
In this
case, that we all get focused on something, making what is sacred or important
a matter of personal concern. Dogmatic
types will instantly find this a problem, but they have lots of others, though
I found this film to be one too many trips to the well for this kind of
non-narrative work.
This runs
95 minutes, which seems longer than it should, but you might want to give it a
look to see what you think.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is a little softer than expected, but is
not bad. However, I bet this looks
sharper on HD or film, something we will have to look into later. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has weak
surrounds at best and is not up to the better films of its kind. Extras include text bios of the team that
made this, but that is all.
We have
at least looked at Fricke’s work and you can read about it at the following
links; titles you might want to see before Mana so you can judge it better:
Baraka
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/534/Baraka+(Anamorphic+DVD-Video+Special+Edition)
Chronos (HD-DVD with Blu-ray version up
soon)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4731/Chronos+(1985/IMAX/HD-DVD
- Nicholas Sheffo
