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The Japanese edition is incredible, how could something that poor slip through the net. If I didn't know it was a DVD I would have assumed it was some cinema pirated copy. The Italian release is soft in comparison to the Mondo release but at least its passable.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 4:39 PM)

I think the result of that comparison is rather unambiguous. ;)

Does Mondo Vision have plans about releasing "Possession"? That one has just received an astonishing release by Bildstörung: -amazon.de/Possession-OmU-Isabelle-Adjani/dp/B002LSPVEY/

Should Mondo Vision also intend to release it, a comparison would be very interesting.

Admittedly the 45-page booklet of the Bildstörung release, containing essays about the film, is not that interesting for non-German speakers, but the film itself, the audio commentary by Zulawski and Daniel Bird as well as the all new 50+ min documentary "The Other Side of the Wall" with current interviews by Zulawski, Marie-Laure Reyre, Andrzej Jaroszewicz and Frederic Tuten are all in English (or, as is true for some parts of the making of documentary, have English subtitles). The packaging featuring the original film artwork on the DVD cover and on the outer slip case is also really classy IMO. The slip case comes with an additional outer layer which can be removed in order to get rid of the ugly ratings logo. ;)

An interesting tidbit about the release is its release date: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall - and also the first ever home video release of the film in Germany (!). Quite astounding as it was shot on location in Berlin in 1981.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 8:26 PM)

Someone posted screen grabs of the German version here:
http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=272529#p272529

It looks like it's from the same source as the Blue Underground version, which certainly leaves a lot of room for improvement. I am sure they DVD team did the best they could with the available source though.

I can't speak for the company, but when I evaluate transfers for Mondo Vision, the attitude generally is, "If it's not going to be the best version, don't release it". "Possession" is a title that's listed on the site as in the works, though :)

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 8:53 PM)

So far the Bildstörung seems to be the best version out there - the colors look a bit off on the Anchor Bay screenshots posted in that comparison. If you have access to a better source, I'd be more than tempted to get another DVD of the film though. The German release has been put together with a lot of admiration for the film and the whole package has a very complete and well-thought-out feeling to it, but a version with improved image quality is always welcome. It's been my first experience of the film so far and it's definitely one film that's worth double-dipping, as it leaves a very lasting impression and surely benefits from repeated viewings.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 9:13 PM)

David,

Did you do the encode for the Mondo Vision version of L'AMOUR BRAQUE? If so, based on the screencaps you once again did a damn great job.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 10:45 PM)

Yes I did (I do all the Mondo Vision titles), and thank you! It was done with the Quantizer Characteristic on 0 (for most of the scenes) to make sure all the grain was retained.

With that said, the real people who deserve credit are the people at Custom Technology Corp. The Cinema Craft line does not get nearly enough respect (or usage) for what it does with MPEG-2. It's insane.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 11:09 PM)

David,

I was curious if you had to work from a PAL source and then convert to NTSC. Regardless, it looks stunning.

(Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 at 2:52 AM)

Hey Ronny,
Yes. All the masters for the Zulawski films so far have been PAL (50i 2:2). In fact, this is the reason why I was asked to supervise standards conversion originally (because Mondo Vision kept getting told that the only way to easily convert PAL to NTSC was to go the interlaced field-blended standards conversion route).

The company that was originally going to be in charge of the encoding and authoring would not be told (despite them producing several field-blended discs in the past from PAL Film sources) so I was asked if I wanted to just handle the whole thing to prevent yet another botched US Zulawski DVD from hitting the market!

(Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 at 3:47 AM)

BTW, if you notice the difference in brightness in the first picture between the Mondo Vision and Raro Video versions, this is why:

When I met Zulawski in London and showed him a pre-release L'amour Braque, he mentioned that during telecine, the colorist had neutralised the look of all of the first shots to match the moment when (SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!) the gang lets off the smoke bomb. Obviously the scene is only supposed to get grey and smokey at that point. So, we did a quick contrast change up to that point and had him approve it.

(Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 at 3:51 AM)

The Mondo Vision release of L'amour Braque is, without exaggeration, one of the single most beautiful DVDs I've had the pleasure of watching. If only more SD releases were treated with this kind of care, I probably wouldn't be so eager to toss out all my DVDs for new Blu-ray copies.

I can't tell you how excited I am to see On the Silver Globe with a better transfer and a new translation - that Polart bootleg was just pitiful!

(Posted on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 6:03 PM)