7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A dog barks. Three pursuers with weapons and deadly intent go to the woods. A polite hobo emerges from a hole in the ground and escapes. He rings bells in an affluent neighborhood until he finds the right house with the right family. Then he puts his plan into motion.
Starring: Jan Bijvoet, Hadewych Minis, Jeroen Perceval, Alex van Warmerdam, Tom DewispelaereForeign | 100% |
Drama | 24% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Dutch: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy (as download)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Note: When Borgman was released on Blu-ray on Sept. 9, 2014, it was immediately noted that the forced English-language subtitles on this Dutch film were, in fact, English SDH subtitles including descriptions of numerous sound effects such as "[dog barking]", "[suspenseful music playing on TV]", etc. Issuer Drafthouse Films began work on a corrected disc, which was released in mid-December, but a problem occurred in replicating the replacement disc, such that a second corrected disc is now being manufactured. It is expected to be available in January 2015. Further Note: On January 9, 2015, I received a copy of the final corrected disc from Drafthouse. Anyone wishing to exchange their disc should contact Drafthouse directly at info@drafthouse.com. The corrected disc cannot be identified by its packaging or external markings, but its menu has an entry for "setup" that contains optional English SDH subtitles. Borgman is the eighth film by Dutch writer/director Alex van Warmerdam, and it was the official Dutch entry for Best Foreign Language Film to the 2014 Academy Awards. The first Dutch film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 38 years, it was nominated for the Palmes D'Or. But Borgman is not the kind of film that wins awards. It gets noticed, and it stays with you, but in the end it's just too weird and unsettling to generate the kind of warmth that triggers a "yes" vote on a ballot. The film can't even be easily categorized. A thriller? A satire? A dark fairy tale, much like those the eponymous protagonist likes to tell children? A horror story masquerading as a deadpan comedy? A Dutch variation of The X- Files? Borgman has elements of all these things, but that still doesn't capture its uniquely astringent flavor.
Borgman was shot by Dutch cinematographer Tom Erisman, who regularly works with van Warmerdam. According to IMDb, the film was captured with the Arri Alexa and finished on a 2K digital intermediate, which is consistent with the appearance of the finished product. Drafthouse's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, released through Cinedigm, was presumably sourced from digital files. If you have only seen publicity stills from Borgman, you will find the colors and brightness on Drafthouse's Blu-ray surprising, because the stills are saturated and contrast-y, whereas the Blu-ray image has been desaturated and contrast is turned way down. I did not see Borgman theatrically, but I presume that this is how the film was intended to look, because the visual style in the stills would cut against the matter-of-fact approach reflected by everything else in the film. The Blu-ray image has good sharpness and detail and consistent black levels, but it avoids bright, saturated colors, preferring a palette of blues and dull earth tones. Even the occasional appearance of blood (most intensely in Marina's dreams) isn't overly red. This isn't an image for showing off one's system, but it has a hypnotic power that draws you in, much as the quietly deliberate Borgman draws in Marina and her children, right under Richard's unsuspecting nose. With its usual commitment to quality, Drafthouse has placed the 114-minute film on a BD-50 with an average bitrate of 29.99 Mbps. Compression artifacts were not an issue.
Borgman's seemingly ordinary environments, sonically reproduced in 5.1 surround and encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, are punctuated with some distinctive sounds that are difficult to describe without spoilers. Water is a frequent element: a large country lake near the home of Richard and Marina; a giant pond that Ludwig and Pascal excavate behind their home, as part of Borgman's makeover of the property; even the simple sounds of the bath that Borgman takes when Marina lets him into the house. The sound mix is subtle and never overwhelming, but like the photography it has a hypnotic effect. The same holds for the spare, electronic score by the director's brother, Vincent van Warmerdam. Borgman's dialogue is primarily in Dutch. Please see the introductory notes regarding the issue with English subtitles, which, as of January 9, 2015, has been corrected by Drafthouse with a remastered disc.
Borgman has been compared to the work of Michael Haneke, but I found the experience to be nothing like watching a Haneke film. Haneke is too much of a stylist ever to be called a realistic filmmaker, but his characters tend to be real people, even if the director views them coldly from a distance. By contrast, van Warmerdam's characters in Borgman may look like real people, but you're never entirely sure what or who they are, and despite the realistic texture, Borgman eventually acquires the quality of a waking dream. There's a sequence in the latter part of the film where Borgman and his "team" put on an outdoor show for the family whose house they've taken over, and it plays like a cross between David Lynch and Monty Python. The only reason it isn't pure comedy is because terrible things have happened by that point, for no apparent reason other than, as Borgman says to Marina, "I want to play". It's not a scene I can imagine in a Haneke film, and neither is Borgman's conclusion. It's not quite like anything else I can recall. Highly recommended, once the fully corrected version is available from Drafthouse.
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