Picnic At Hanging Rock (1974/Umbrella Import Blu-ray) + Bliss (1985) + Kiss of The Spider Woman (1985) + Sirens (1994/Umbrella Region Free PAL DVD Imports)
Picture:
B/C+ & C/C+/C+ Sound: B-/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C+ Films: C+
PLEASE NOTE: The Blu-ray covered plays in all
Blu-ray players in all three regions (A, B and C), plus the extras are also all
in High Definition, so they will show up on all players worldwide (no worries
about analog PAL incompatibility), while all the DVDs covered can only be
operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region
Zero/0/Free PAL format software and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the review.
Umbrella
has again issued an interesting wave of high profile titles at once and half of
them we have actually covered before.
First, we covered the basic single-DVD edition of Picnic At Hanging Rock in a larger DVD set from Umbrella:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9250/Australian+Cinema+Collection,+Volume
Still no
fan of the film, at least we get the extras from the two DVD set.
Then we
also covered Kiss Of the Spider Woman
in both Blu-ray and DVD in its U.S.
release:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7398/Kiss+Of+The+Spider+Woman+(City+Li
I think
the U.S. DVD is the equal of the PAL DVD here in picture and sound, so you
cannot go wrong in either case, so we’ll see if Umbrella has a Blu-ray that is
the same or better than the U.S. Blu-ray.
In addition, I was not as keen as my fellow writer on the playback
quality, but it is not by muck I disliked either the picture or sound. I also think the film is a bit stagy and
overrated despite the boldness of the performances and fine acting.
Bliss (1985) is Ray Lawrence’s attempt
to capture Terry Gilliam’s style with a film about life and death that looks
like Martin Scorsese’s After Hours,
released the same year. The ironically
named Harry Joy (Barry Otto) dies, but not completely, finding himself drifting
through his past, alternate versions and distorted versions thereof. Based on a novel by Peter Carey, whose work
led to films of the entertaining Dead-End
Drive-in (reviewed elsewhere on this site), Oscar & Lucinda and Wim Wender’s pitiful Until The End Of The World.
This is not as fun as Dead, but interesting to watch.
Sirens (1993) takes place in the 1930s
as a member of the clergy (Hugh Grant) and his wife (Tara Fitzgerald) meet
artist Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) who is showing a painting that is driving the
church mad. Anthony (Grant) is more
forward-thinking than his church and that is what leads all of them into the Blue Mountains with the Lindsay family and three sisters
(Kate Fischer, Elle MacPherson, Portia De Rossi) who are highly comfortable
with their sexuality and no inhibitions.
Anthony is trying to negotiate a peaceful removal of the painting, but
all start to get intimately involved and his wife becomes interested in a man
on the blind side named Devlin (Mark Gerber) who is also in exceptional shape
and equally uninhibited.
While the
set up is intriguing, the film never really delivers anything we have not
already seen. Those who get naked here
do it bravely and in context to the story, but the film tries to get symbolic
in ways that never pan out. Duigan just
cannot juggle more complex material and it shows here, but this is interesting
to watch once, but no good amount of acting can save it. Rachel Portman supplies a good music score
and Director of Photography Geoff Burton (as he proved on Wide Sargasso Sea) can shoot nudes well. Too bad the script is not there.
The 1080p
1.77 X 1 digital High Definition image on Picnic
was shot in 35mm film and after so many weak DVD versions of the film worldwide
is a very pleasant surprise. Though
there are still some flaws in the fine detail, the color is hugely improved
with often excellent reproduction that will stun fans of the film and make it
more watchable for those who are not as keen on it. The film was shot in a slightly diffused
manner, but the combination of restored print and someone doing a decent job on
the transfer combine to really deliver an often film-like image.
The
anamorphically enhanced DVDs (1.85 X 1 on all but Bliss, which is at 1.77 X 1 and has a better-looking print for its
longer Director’s Cut than the cut
version also included) show their age in spots with softness, some minor print
flaws and other limits that show the low budgets involved, but they can look
good and are not bad overall.
The Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 mix on Hanging is also
much better than expected, with music really benefiting from the more advance
audio codec, while dialogue and sound effects have been cleaned up and are not
bad at all, but have slightly less fidelity than the score. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Kiss and Sirens never achieves a great soundfield, but shows efforts to make
the sound playback as well as it could for a lossless codec. Kiss
also has a lesser Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono mix for purists or those unhappy with
the 5.1, while Bliss only has Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono, but it is good for its age in both cuts of the film.
Extras in
all cases include Trailers and all the DVDs have Stills Galleries. Picnic
adds the featurette A Recollection:
Hanging Rock 1900 and two-hour documentary A Dream Within A Dream
with interviews with all the principals and more. Bliss
has audio description for the visually impaired for both cuts of the film, DVD
1 adds a slick, interesting Unauthorised American Trailer and DVD 2 adds a
Script-To-Screen and feature length Audio Commentary by Director Lawrence and
Producer Anthony Buckley. Kiss repeats
the extras of its U.S counterpart and Sirens adds an ABC (Australian
Broadcasting Company) Lively Arts interview with Norman Lindsay, feature length
Audio Commentary by Director Duigan and Producer Sue Milliken, Press
Clippings/Script PDFs that are DVD-ROM accessible and an informal “chat”
between Duigan and Grant on the film from the time.
As noted
above, you can order the Blu-ray and PAL import DVDs exclusively from Umbrella
at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
