7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
At a desolate Romanian monastery, a young novice nun, Voichița, reunites with her former companion Alina, who plans to take her to Germany. But Voichița proves unwilling to abandon her calling, and Alina becomes increasingly desperate to reclaim her devotion.
Starring: Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu AndriutaForeign | 100% |
Drama | 97% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Romanian: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Romanian: LPCM 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Winner of Best Actress and Best Screenplay Awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's "Dupa dealuri" a.k.a. "Beyond the Hills" (2012) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye. The only supplemental feature on the disc is an original trailer for the film. In Romanian, with imposed English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
Can you help her, Father.
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye.
Excluding some extremely light banding that quickly appears early into the film, the presentation is indeed very impressive. Depth and detail are excellent during close-ups and wider panoramic shots. Clarity is also outstanding. Even the nighttime footage looks terrific (see screencaptures #16 and 17). Color reproduction is also enormously pleasing. There is a wide range of strong and natural colors that never collapse or feel boosted. There are no traces of problematic lab corrections. Also, there are no serious transfer specific anomalies to report in this review. Overall image stability is also terrific. All in all, this is a near flawless presentation of Beyond the Hills that should make fans of director Mungiu's work very happy. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Romanian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Romanian LPCM 2.0. For the record, Artificial Eye have provided imposed English subtitles for the main feature (they cannot be turned off from the main menu or with the remote control). They appear inside the image frame.
Depth and especially clarity are excellent. Even seemingly random noises are incredibly crisp and easy to identify (the wind blowing in the back, chatter, a car engine, etc). Surround activity is extremely limited, but such is the film's original sound design. The dialog is exceptionally crisp, stable, and very easy to follow. Also, there are no pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or distortions to report in this review. The English translation is excellent.
Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills is easily one of the top five films to reach my desk this year. It is as emotionally devastating and hauntingly beautiful as Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Banishment and as thought-provoking as Pavel Lungin's The Island. I liked this film even more than the Romanian director's superb 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days. Kudos to Artificial Eye for consistently bringing the best world films to Blu-ray. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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