Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Antonia's Line Blu-ray Movie Review

Country Matters

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 29, 2016

Antonia's Line is the English title of a film that was originally called, simply, Antonia, and the original title better expresses Dutch writer/director Marleen Gorris' combination of biography and family chronicle. The "line" founded by the title character includes both her direct descendants and others who gravitate toward the unconventional home that Antonia establishes in her rural village. Although the film is set in place where tradition prevails and time often seems to stand still, the unlikely eccentrics of Antonia's circle develop their own rules for living together, and the deceptively simple style with which Gorris relates their interwoven stories imbues the film with the surrealism of a fairy tale, often comic, sometimes tragic, always memorable. Antonia's Line won the 1995 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and arthouse distributor Film Movement has now added it to their line of classics on Blu-ray.

Antonia's Line opens on the day of its title character's death. As the elderly Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy) stares at her reflection in the mirror, an unidentified narrator explains that the old lady knows this will be her last day on earth. The remainder of the film relates the life Antonia has lived—but not all of it. Gorris picks up the story immediately after World War II, when Antonia returns to her native village with her daughter, Danielle (Els Dottermans), whose father is never mentioned. One villager refers to Antonia as "the prodigal daughter", and we never learn why she left or where she spent the war years. But as she walks through town with Danielle, pointing out familiar people and places, it quickly becomes apparent that Antonia is both confident in herself and indifferent to the opinions of others.

Antonia returns just in time to visit the deathbed of her mother (Dora van der Groen), whose nearness to death doesn't prevent the angry old woman from ranting and cursing her long-dead husband, Antonia's philandering father. The funeral provides a further occasion to introduce Danielle to the town. Through the eyes of Danielle, an aspiring artist, the solemn proceedings are transformed into a magical pageant, with Christ coming to life on the cross and the mourners' hymn morphing into "My Blue Heaven". The sequence is the first of many to reveal fantastical dimensions in this seemingly ordinary world.

Antonia and her daughter move into her former home, begin farming the land and become a fixture of the community. As the narrator explains, "the villagers eventually accepted them, just as they did a bad harvest, a deformed child or the self-evident, if unlikely, omnipresence of God".

In the decades that follow, Antonia's "line" is extended by a granddaughter, Thérèse, whom Danielle conceives with a stranger highly recommended for his genetic heritage. (Thérèse is played by a succession of child actresses and, as an adult, by Veerle van Overloop.) A prodigy in both math and music, Thérèse is tutored by the village intellectual, a childhood friend of Antonia's known by the nickname of "Crooked Finger" (Mil Seghers). Eventually, Thérèse too bears a daughter, Sarah (Thyrza Ravesteijn), an observant redhead who spends hours writing stories in her notebook about her family circle.

Joining these blood relations at the jovial outdoor dinner table around which Antonia's clan routinely gathers is an expanding group of loosely affiliated friends and honorary relations. Boer (Jan Decleir) is a local farmer with four sons, whose marriage proposal Antonia declines, although she later accepts him as a lover. Lara (Elsie de Brauw) is the teacher who first identifies Thérèse's intellectual gifts and eventually joins the family. Letta (Wimie Wilhelm) is a former city resident who helps Danielle find the man to father Thérèse and who, after relocating to Antonia's village, devotes all her energy to her passion in life, which is being pregnant and giving birth. Deedee (Marina de Graaf), the mentally challenged daughter of a boorish local farmer, is informally adopted by Antonia and later becomes involved with a farmhand known only as "Looney Lips" (Jan Steen). Russian Olga is the proprietor of the village café; she also acts as midwife and undertaker, dividing her time equally between life and death.

Other village residents remain outside Antonia's circle, revolving in their own orbits. Crooked Finger is a recluse who stays indoors and grows increasingly pessimistic with age. A pair of neighbors known as "Mad Madonna" (Catherine ten Bruggencate), who howls at the moon, and Protestant (Paul Kooij), who hammers on the ceiling to make her stop, are local fixtures. The village pastor (Leo Hogenboom) attempts to impose moral discipline on the town but is forced to revise his sermons after the villagers catch him in a compromising position.

Gorris fluidly navigates among the overlapping and interweaving lives of these idiosyncratic characters, establishing Antonia's world as a kind of microcosm in which all of life's major events are encompassed. Experiences of joy and romance alternate with episodes of tragedy and violence, and we watch the characters age, while their environment remains largely unchanged. (The cars are more modern, and the clothing evolves.) Antonia remains at the center, both ordinary and mysterious, her life force sustaining the collective around her, until the film returns to its opening on the day of her death. Even then, Gorris hints that her heroine's spirit continues. "And as this long chronicle reaches its conclusion", reads a closing title, "nothing has come to an end."

Antonia's Line Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Antonia's Line was shot by Belgian cinematographer Willy Stassen. Film Movement's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is advertised as being derived from a new 2K scan of the film, although it isn't specified what source was scanned. The image is film-like and detailed, through frequently soft, and the grain structure is natural and unmolested by digital manipulation. The image appears to have been brightened, so that blacks often shade toward gray and colors are sometimes washed out. Consistent with the country locale, the film's palette favors earth tones, which are sometimes accented by reds and pinks (particularly where Antonia and her offspring are concerned). The palette shifts toward cooler and more sterile hues whenever the characters' lives take them to the nearby city.

Film Movement has mastered Antonia's Line with a high average bitrate of 35.00 Mbps and a capable encode.

Antonia's Line Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Although the Dolby Digital logo appears in the credits, I have not been able to find any indication that Antonia's Line was released with a 5.1 sound mix. The Blu-ray features a stereo track, and although Film Movement has opted for lossless encoding on many previous releases, this disc has been encoded in DD 2.0 (at 448 kbps). Stereo separation is evident in the expressive score, alternately rustic and operatic, by British composer Ilona Sekacz (Mrs. Dalloway). Otherwise the sound mix collapses toward the center for dialogue, narration and sound effects. While I cannot evaluate the clarity of the Dutch dialogue, voices are never hard to hear. One can only guess at the improvements that might be achieved by lossless encoding, but its omission here is unfortunate.

Antonia's Line Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Archival Interview with Director Marleen Gorris (480i; 1.33:1; 8:52): In this TV interview from 1995, Gorris discusses editing (which she says is the "fun" part of making a film), scoring and what she would do differently if she were making Antonia's Line a second time. Note: Due to a mastering quirk, this feature will not play on some Blu-ray players (e.g., the Oppo BDP-103).



• Booklet: The included booklet features stills, a chapter listing, film credits and an essay on the film by critic Thelma Adams.



• Trailers: Several of these also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.
• The Pillow Book (1080p; 1:34)
• The Best Intentions (480i; 2:32)
• Full Moon in Paris (1080p; 1:21)
• The Marquise of O (1080p; 1:34)
• Ugly, Dirty and Bad (1080p; 3:12)
• The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1080p; 1:24)
• Film Movement Classics (1080p; 0:49)

Antonia's Line Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Gorris was the first female director to win the Foreign Language Oscar, and Antonia's Line is undeniably a woman's picture in its characters, themes and preoccupations. But Gorris' tale is as stoic and tough-minded as any traditional male genre in its embrace of life's hardships and the characters' insistence on living life on their own terms. While Film Movement's Blu-ray has some weaknesses, the film itself is unique and recommended.