Absolute Beginners Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Absolute Beginners Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 26, 2015

Gil Evans blasted through any number of preconceptions of what various musical genres were “supposed” to offer in his long and illustrious career as a composer and arranger. While jazz fans will no doubt associate Evans with The Birth of the Cool or his later collaborations with Miles Davis, Evans’ entire recorded output is like a wonderful menu where, instead of “one from Column A, one from Column B,” the listener is treated to a veritable dim sum assortment of various (and at times radically disparate) approaches and ideas. Evans wasn’t shy about disparaging perceived “commercial” tendencies in a lot of the corporate music scene, and perhaps due to that inherently iconoclastic quality, Evans never really did a lot in the feature film business, with Absolute Beginners being one of his very few credits. Much like Evans’ musical output, Absolute Beginners is an at times rather odd hodgepodge of styles and ideas, and the mash up is frankly only intermittently successful. Colin Macinnes’ 1959 source novel had documented the adventures of a gaggle of late fifties London teens experiencing both the joys of beginning to escape from a post-World War II sluggishness (not just necessarily economic), as well as nascent problems like racism and rampant consumerism. Director Julien Temple, working off of a screenplay by Richard Burridge, jumbles all of these ideas (and a few more, just for good measure) into a kaleidoscopic frenzy that is frequently ebullient but which ultimately fails to register on any profound emotional level.

The whimsical proclivities of Absolute Beginners are on display from the get go, as young aspiring photographer Colin (Eddie O’Connell) begins to get ready for a night out on the town. His flat is a sterling example of a bachelor’s mind at work, with appliances like the refrigerator utilized not for storing food, but for keeping clothes tucked away out of sight. A bevy of photos of Colin’s girlfriend (Crepe) Suzette (Patsy Kensit) grace the wall, and in fact one of them springs to “life”, offering Colin a bit of advice on what shirt to wear. When the nattily clad Colin finally emerges into the street, Temple’s camera cartwheels through a series of ornately plotted uncut shots that introduce not just a bevy of supporting characters, but the teeming streets of “hip” (pre-Mod) London as well.

Colin seems like a sweet kid, but he’s something of a slacker, a tendency that grates against Suzette’s more traditionally ambitious tendencies. Suzette is an aspiring fashion designer, and when she’s offered a connection to enterprising fashion icon Henley of Mayfair (James Fox, flouncing with abandon), she jumps at the chance. A perhaps machinating Henley ends up romancing Suzette, seducing her as much with the fabulous lifestyle he can provide as with any putative charms he himself possesses. Colin, meanwhile, is left in the lurch, ultimately deciding that he needs to do something to (re)attract Suzette’s attention.

With Suzette happily ensconced among the beautiful people, Colin undertakes some career moves which bring him into contact with slick PR guru Vendice Partners (David Bowie), who attempts to coax Colin over to the “dark side” of object acquisition. Playing out against this already overstuffed hodgepodge is a socioeconomic angle involving the entire neighborhood, with a planned new development needing to displace the less advantaged inhabitants of the area. That leads to something of a race war in sequences that play out something like West Side Story as reimagined by Baz Luhrmann.

There’s a disconnect between the film’s putative era and its musical content, with such eighties’ acts as Sade making somewhat anachronistic cameo appearances in the film. Nevertheless, Absolute Beginners springs to winning life in many of the musical sequences, helped by some inventive framings on the part of Temple and DP Oliver Stapleton. That energy tends to be dissipated in the “book” scenes, however, where the film struggles to decide what it really wants to be about, the intimate star-crossed love story of Colin and Suzette, or larger issues involving British society’s transitions out of a post-war mentality.

Film musicals were already something of an endangered species when Absolute Beginners debuted to critical displeasure and public apathy in 1986. The fact that the film is a triumph of style over substance is probably made slightly ironic by the fact that it’s obvious the film has some pretensions about actually providing some substance. Unfortunately those ambitions are undercut by the whirling, swirling production design and peripatetic camera moves (two other elements which tend to presage Luhrmann). Gil Evans’ arranging prowess is at least given a chance to fully flower, and the film’s music, while certainly nowhere near temporal “accuracy,” is one of Absolute Beginners’ most winning achievements.

Absolute Beginners Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Absolute Beginners is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. Culled from the MGM library (by way of Orion), my hunch is this was sourced off an older master, for there are slight but noticeable deficiencies in detail and texture. Elements are in generally very good condition, though those looking for them will be able to find typical signs of age related wear and tear. The best thing about this high definition upgrade is the often mind blowing color, and saturation and overall vividness are simply stunning a lot of the time, a clear, unmistakable upgrade from the old MGM DVD. Close-ups also offer reasonable fine detail, especially with regard to elements like textures of fabrics. Midrange and wide shots are a bit fuzzy looking at times, something that a newer transfer could arguably at least mitigate. While contrast is generally consistent, some of the darker scenes (either interiors or nighttime moments) suffer from meager shadow detail. Grain is well in evidence, though is occasionally variable as well, not always resolving in a natural looking way. All in all, though, this is a solid if occasionally lackluster offering which should please this film's rather ardent fan base.

Absolute Beginners Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Absolute Beginners features both a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 as well as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. Both of these tracks offer sterling fidelity and excellent clarity, though prioritization is occasionally a minor (and transitory) problem on the surround mix, where (for example) lines of dialogue during musical moments can get just slightly buried at times. The 5.1 mix opens up the soundstage rather significantly during the musical numbers, less so during dialogue scenes. There are no signs of damage like dropouts or distortion.

Absolute Beginners Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.


• MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (1080p; 2:06)

Absolute Beginners Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Absolute Beginners is a patently bizarre mashup of ideas and styles, as perfectly evidenced by the eighties' song score attempting to illuminate a late fifties' timeframe. Probably best appreciated as a curiosity, the film should certainly be seen by anyone who thought that Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! sprung fully formed like a singing and dancing Venus on the half shell. While there's not much in the way of supplements, and video is occasionally a bit spotty, Absolute Beginners comes Recommended.