| Noel Megahey's Top 5 DVDs of 2007 While the major studios have been putting their energy into competing with each other over which blockbusters they can release to sway the Home Theatre viewing public towards one High Definition format or the other, the smaller labels have been getting on with pumping out an incredible selection of specialist and World Cinema Standard Definition releases in 2007. If the output of Classic, Independent and World Cinema on regular DVD releases maintains this standard of quality and sheer range in 2008, I for one will not be in too much of a rush to enter the High Definition format war. This year has again seen an abundance of high quality releases from the larger independents in the UK filling in many gaps in the catalogues of important directors, often in box-set collections. Optimum with the entire Studio Canal catalogue at their disposal, contributed in the biggest way with numerous boxset releases, of which the Luis Bu uel Collection is perhaps the most notable. Artificial Eye rounded-off a solid if unadventurous year with long-awaited Kaurism ki and Fassbinder collections. The BFI however have really shone with outstanding editions of important films from Derek Jarman (The Angelic Conversation, Wittgenstein and Caravaggio), Jan vankmajer and Mikio Naruse – the company taking their rightful place as the UK equivalent of the Criterion Collection, often surpassing the eminent US label in the quality of their releases and abundance of worthwhile extra features. For my money however, it is Tartan who has been the best distributor in 2007, with a tremendous diversity of adventurous cult, horror, Asian, international, classic and left-of-centre independent cinema releases. More importantly, they have significantly improved the quality of their transfers, gathered useful extra features and packaged their DVD sets very attractively indeed. Occasional problems still remain with their PAL conversion of Asian NTSC masters, but even here the process is much improved, rarely causing any significant problems. In particular, Tartan’s collections of their Jodorowsky, Ozu, Eisenstein and Pasolini sets have been most impressive. Although not one of the larger independent labels, the 2007 releases from Second Run and Eureka’s Masters of Cinema imprint have also consistently been of comparable quality. Both labels got off to a somewhat slow start this year, but the latter half of the year saw three astoundingly good F.W. Murnau titles from Masters of Cinema - Nosferatu, Tabu – A Story of the South Seas and Der Letzte Mann and a rare piece of Visconti neorealism in Bellissima. Second Run meanwhile continued to bring us rarely seen East European titles with crucial releases of The Party And The Guests and Marketa Lazarova, diversifying and extending their range into challenging and unique cinema such as Artur Aristakisyan’s Palms. The quality of the releases at some of the other smaller distributors of specialist, world and independent cinema on DVD such as Arrow, Second Sight, Yume and Drake’s Avenue has been variable but Axiom, Peccadillo Pictures and Soda Pictures have been consistently good in their quality and range of interesting titles that could easily be overlooked, between them giving very welcome releases for important films by the likes of Dumont, Fassbinder, Herzog, Suzuki, Bu uel, Sokurov, Kiarostami, Godard, Gatlif, Amelio, Resnais and Chabrol. 2007 consequently has been an outstanding year for Standard Definition DVD releases, with such a high number of important, classic films getting superlative releases that it is difficult to restrict my selection to only five, much less put them into any meaningful order. However, in terms of the quality of the DVD transfer, extras and presentation of a DVD being on a par with the importance of the film, the following DVD sets deserve mention as certainly being among the very best releases of the year: Blade Runner: The Final Cut (Warner, UK)
Bicycle Thieves (Criterion, USA)
Breathless (Criterion, USA)
Tabu – A Story of the South Seas (Masters of Cinema, UK)
The Seventh Seal: 50th Anniversary SE (Tartan, UK)
Jan vankmajer – The Complete Short Films (BFI, UK)
Pasolini Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (Tartan, UK)
Into Great Silence (Soda, UK)
Inland Empire (Absurda, USA)
Nosferatu (Masters of Cinema, UK) Having acknowledged and greatly appreciated the not inconsiderable efforts of all the above, there are a number of other lesser-known DVDs released this year by new and upcoming directors that may not have been given the full works in terms of DVD presentation, may not have the profile of Bicycle Thieves or The Seventh Seal, but are nevertheless worthy of greater attention than they have perhaps received so far. Often, it’s simply that their premise can make them particularly difficult to describe in a manner that indicates their qualities. I'd take this as some measure of their greatness and originality, but perhaps I need to do more to convince others. It’s these five films then that I am going to make the focus of my selection of favourite DVD releases of 2007. 1. Be With Me – Eric Khoo (Peccadillo Pictures, UK)
Eric Khoo’s extraordinary film is made up of several little vignettes, three beautiful but simple stories of misplaced love and failure to communicate. Each of the almost dialogue-free segments is exquisitely made – almost too perfectly made in fact - covering with textbook precision distinct age groups, love in its various forms and methods of communication which range from text messages to food. What elevates the film however is Khoo’s extraordinary idea to intersperse these little stories with the real-life story of Teresa Chan, a deaf and blind woman who has managed to deal with almost insurmountable difficulties. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Teresa Chan’s story becomes the emotional heart of the film, thematically linking each of the other parts and giving them real depth and meaning. On DVD this remarkable film is given a superb UK release by the consistently reliable Peccadillo Pictures, with a fine transfer and good extra features.
2. Frozen Land - Aku Louhimies (ICA Projects, UK)
Invariably releasing barebones transfers of basic quality, it may seem like a bad joke to include any DVD release by ICA Projects in any list of DVDs of the year, but Aku Louhimies’s film deserves special mention. Ambitiously taking on a story by Tolstoy already filmed brilliantly by Robert Bresson as L'Argent, the young Finnish director puts his own spin on a tale where a simple incident spirals into a series of horrifying events, applying it to Finnish society and succeeding in drawing out even greater depths, ambiguities and modern social relevance from the original story’s already complex moral issues. Be warned however that Frozen Land presents a particularly harsh and bleak outlook and is not for the faint-hearted. A clear anamorphic transfer is about the best you can expect from ICA Projects on their DVD release and that is indeed all you get.
3. Bamako - Abderrahmane Sissako (Artificial Eye, UK)
I’m convinced that there is no way of making Bamako sound interesting. It consists largely of a mock trial set up in the courtyard of a house in Mali to put charges of exploitation against the actions of the World Bank and the IMF that keep the African nations struggling to cope with crippling debts – but trust me, it is a much more compelling film than it sounds. Bamako is certainly a polemic and has an important political point to make, but it is also impassioned and inventive filmmaking that explores the capabilities of cinema, the director Abderrahmane Sissako keeping the film interesting in so many imaginative ways without resorting to Michael Moore-style stunts. Artificial Eye’s DVD release is strong, with a reasonably clear transfer and good supporting material in the features.
4. Johanna - Kornél Mundruczó (Tartan, UK)
If the basic premise of Bamako makes it a hard film to sell, how to you convince people about the merits of an original Hungarian horror film-opera (when even a Hungarian opera would be considered something of a rarity), based on Joan of Arc, but set in a modern-day hospital where one of the nurses uses sex to heal her patients? And is there any opera that has a libretto that throws up unusual lines like “Lets run to the Urology Department”? There is more to Kornél Mundruczó’s film though than just its novelty value, and if Johanna isn’t the greatest opera ever written, it is at least a superbly crafted film and well-performed by the cast. A bold experiment indeed and well worth another look, particularly as it has such a superb presentation on DVD by Tartan.
5. Dans Paris - Christophe Honoré (Artificial Eye, UK)
Christophe Honoré has not yet had the same level of attention that has been given to another young French filmmaker with whom he has much in common, François Ozon, but with two remarkable releases in the space of a year - Dans Paris and Les Chansons d’Amour, like Ozon, Honoré is quickly moving away from the hit-and-miss scattershot of his early work towards finding his own voice within the framework of classic French cinema. Honoré has found his inspiration is within the Nouvelle Vague of the 60s, but through that means of expression the director paradoxically finds his own voice and manages in Dans Paris to make a film that is about cinema as much as it is cinema. Beyond the stylisations there is a deep underlying sincerity and truth in his depiction of his characters and their relationships with each other and the world around them. Artificial Eye’s DVD release brings out those qualities though a fine transfer and a fascinating interview with the director.
Top 10 HD Transfers of 2007 (List created with help from David Mackenzie) As someone who has developed a reputation for being extremely difficult to please when it comes to the transfers of films on DVD, the advent of high definition has been both a blessing and a curse. Obviously, it is a blessing in the sense that those responsible for transferring films to either HD DVD or Blu-ray (or both) now have six times as much resolution to work with as they did before, meaning that, provided the source materials are top drawer and the encoders resist the urge to play around with the ever-irritating filtering and edge enhancement controls, they can finally provide home viewers with a presentation that matches or even exceeds what they would see at the cinema. However, it also ends up being a curse in that, by contrast, if the source material isn't up to snuff and the technicians are incompetent (both of which are sadly all too prevalent), then flaws that might not have been noticeable in standard definition become major eyesores when "blown up" to a resolution of 1920x1080.
With that in mind, I thought it would be a nice gesture to celebrate the absolute cream of the crop by devising a list of the best transfers I have seen released in the last twelve months. Bear in mind that this list is somewhat subjective. I don't claim to have seen every single HD DVD and Blu-ray disc released in 2007 (far from it), so it's entirely possible that I've missed an absolute gem or two. Likewise, I'm sure you'll disagree with some of my choices here, which is absolutely fine: if you made a list of your favourite transfers of the year, I'm sure I'd do likewise. However, I hope you enjoy this little feature, which was a nice opportunity for me to take a much-needed break from bitching about the flaws found in the majority of transfers (high definition or standard definition) and lavish praise on what have been, for me, the Top 10 HD Transfers of 2007.
Oh, and, as an added bonus, I've included a screen capture for each of the ten transfers covered here. Each image is clickable, opening a full resolution 1920x1080 capture taken directly from the disc itself in a new window.
Without further ado...
10. Blade Runner: Final Cut (HD DVD/Blu-ray)
Warner, USA, VC-1
While catalogue titles can look very good on both high definition formats, broadly speaking the ones that really shine are those for which digital intermediate masters are available. Blade Runner, however, taken from a 4k scan of the original negative, proves to be the exception to this rule. With not a lick of edge enhancement in sight and detail that blows away many transfers for films released this year, it's hard to believe Blade Runner is more than 25 years old. That's not to say that it has been cleaned up beyond recognition - on the contrary, it still looks beautifully film-like - but it just goes to show how good an older film can look when the studios invest the necessary time and money.
9. Black Snake Moan (HD DVD)
Paramount, USA, AVC
In terms of the quality of new releases, no studio has pleased me on as consistent a basis as Paramount. While their treatment of catalogue materials tends to be as variable as the other majors, one thing that seems to hold true is that, if they are bringing out a film for which a digital intermediate exists, the output will be as close to flawless as is possible with lossy compression. While Black Snake Moan, by its nature, doesn't wow with razor sharp detail in the way that some of the titles on this list do, it really is incredibly difficult to complain about it in any way.
8. Cars (Blu-ray)
Buena Vista, USA, AVC
One of the misnomers I hear being most frequently bandied about regarding high definition, after the claim that a film has to have been shot in HD to look good on an HD format, is the belief that animation doesn't benefit from the HD treatment as much as live action. If anything, the opposite is true, and Disney's Blu-ray release of Cars goes a long way towards showing just how good an animated title can look in 1080p. It does, unfortunately, suffer from a small number of minor compression issues, but the upgrade it provides over the DVD is immense, with every one of its 2,073,600 available pixels put to use.
7. Spider-man 3 (Blu-ray)
Sony Pictures, UK, AVC
This may actually be the most detail I've ever seen in a presentation of a film, regardless of format. There are moments that simply leave your jaw hanging slack because you can't believe how much visual information has been squeezed on to a single disc. Were it not for the fact that a small number of shots have been inexplicably oversharpened, resulting in some mild but noticeable ringing around edges, then I am of no doubt that this would have been the finest transfer I'd ever seen.
6. Silent Hill (HD DVD/Blu-ray)
Concorde, Germany, VC-1
Sony Pictures' 2006 release of Silent Hill on Blu-ray in the US, one of the format's first ever titles, was marred by its flawed compression - a combination of inadequate disc space and an outdated codec. Almost exactly a year later, German-based Concorde corrected their mistakes by taking the same superb master and releasing the film simultaneously on both high definition formats with a superior encode. As with most of the films included in this list, there is detail in this transfer down to the level of the individual pixels, making this one of the strongest examples of what high definition is all about.
5. Hot Fuzz (HD DVD)
Universal, UK, VC-1
Of all the major studios releasing HD content, none has a more varied track record than Universal. The same label responsible for a slew of underwhelming catalogue releases, and who shamelessly released Traffic on HD DVD, taken from an upconverted 480i standard definition master, have also put out some of the finest-looking HD titles to date. In fact, with more 10/10 transfers awarded to them by myself than any other studio, one really has to wonder why they can't get it right more consistently. Hot Fuzz is a prime example of how good a new film can look when transferred from its digital intermediate source with no unneccessary tampering: a flawless presentation from start to finish.
4. Casino Royale (Blu-ray)
Sony Pictures, Finland, AVC
The first high definition venture for James Bond does Agent 007 proud with a sublime transfer featuring razor sharp detail and expertly handled compression. Arguably Blu-ray's flagship title of 2007, more copies of this disc appear to have been bundled with various pieces of hardware than any other movie, and it is to Sony's credit that they selected their finest transfer to show off their format's capabilities.
3. The Bourne Ultimatum (HD DVD)
Universal, USA, VC-1
Jason Bourne's third outing on the big screen features more jittery camerawork and frenetic editing than you can shake a stick at, and only the very best transfer could possibly suffice for this difficult material. Thankfully, Universal pulled this one out of the bag, gracing the film with a pin sharp image with no visible compression problems, capturing every zip pan and jump cut to perfection. An extremely impressive presentation all round, and the best-looking transfer of the trilogy by far.
2. Inside Man (HD DVD)
Universal, USA, VC-1
An extremely pleasant surprise, Spike Lee's smart crime thriller looks incredible on HD DVD thanks to a highly detailed transfer that is marvelously handled in every respect. While it may not be the flashiest film around, its transfer eclipses every other live action movie that I've seen released in high definition this year, and shows that you don't need to be a bloated $200 million epic with lots of explosions and CGI battles to excel in HD.
1. Ratatouille (Blu-ray)
Buena Vista, USA, AVC
It was perhaps predictable that the award for Best HD Transfer of 2007 would go to an all-digital animated feature: after all, it comes from a flawless source and was visually sumptuous to start with. Ignoring the artistry of the film itself, however, Ratatouille's transfer on Blu-ray is an outstanding piece of work. Writer/director Brad Bird specifically asked Rick Sayre, a Pixar technical director who also handled the encoding of the DVD releases of The Incredibles, to be in charge of creating the DVD and Blu-ray transfers for the film, and I for one am incredibly glad that he did. Ratatouille features a smooth, warm look as opposed to the overly sharp, synthetic look favoured by most CG-animated films, and as a result details don't always leap of the screen in the way that they do on, say, the Blu-ray release of Cars, but this is completely appropriate given the film's intended look. I cannot find a single flaw in this transfer, and I mean that in a literal sense: generally, even the best-looking transfers, regardless of the disc format and codec used, will feature minuscule elements that cause it to fall just shy of perfection, be it a tiny compression artefact here or a smidgen of edge enhancement there, but there is none of that in Ratatouille.
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