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Thursday, August 25, 2011

BD impressions: Rififi

9:35 PM / BD Impressions / 11 Comments

Sorry for maintaining radio silence for so long. You know how it is - busy busy busy! I've bought a new laptop (full story later - it's not pretty), been working on both my academic and scripterly writing ventures, and, y'know, actually watching the odd film! By the way, you'll probably have noticed that I've switched back to the tried and trusted 10-point scale for BD image quality ratings. I liked the idea behind the various degrees of recommendation ("Recommended but with issues" etc.), but in practice it proved to be too cumbersome and failed to convey the overall quality as clearly as a good old fashioned number. I'd still like to find some way of making it work, but for the time being I'm going to stick with what I know...

The film: Apparently they're remaking RIFIFI. If this comes to pass, there is something very wrong with the world. What's next? CASABLANCA? CITIZEN KANE? HOWARD THE DUCK? I'd all rather academic anyway, as I actually enjoyed RIFIFI more than any of these three films.* I saw it for the first time on Sunday night and found myself admiring it a great deal for its calm, measured sense of pacing and the manner in which it clinically documents the planning, execution and aftermath of the jewel heist around which the film revolves. I'd be inclined to suggest that things do sag a little immediately after the completion of the robbery, which occurs roughly two thirds of the way through the film, but it all comes together for a stunning violence and a car ride through the streets of Paris that I won't be forgetting in a hurry. I've always had a soft spot for "howdunits" - DIAL M FOR MURDER remains one of my favourite Hitchcock films for that very reason - and RIFIFI, released just a year later, unquestionably deserves to stand alongside it as one of the very best examples of the form. 9/10

* OK, I lied. I haven't actually seen HOWARD THE DUCK.

Image quality: After writing a string of lukewarm or negative reviews of BD releases from Arrow, it's a pleasure to finally be able to give credit where credit's due and praise them for the superb work done here. They were clearly given an excellent master to begin with, but there are no problems at the encoding end and I see no sign of the grain reduction that plagued the likes of INFERNO and PHENOMENA. Except in the various optical shots, detail is razor sharp, resulting in an image that I doubt looked this good even in first-run theatres. The only downside is what looks like some contrast boosting, resulting in clipped highlights in a number of shots.

There's not much more to say about this disc. It's one of the best presentations I've ever seen of a film of this age (looking at it here, it's hard to believe it's nearly 60 years old) and unquestionably the best-looking BD I've seen from Arrow. 9.5/10

Rififi
label: Arrow Films; disc country: UK; region code: B;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 1.37:1

11 Comments

 
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