Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Dos Monjes Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 4, 2020

Note: This film is available as a part of Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project, No. 3.

Martin Scorsese has been curating the World Cinema Project for around thirteen years now, and the result has been a veritable cornucopia of international films that in some cases Scorsese’s efforts have helped save from the ravages of time (and vinegar syndrome). As of the writing of this review, the World Cinema Project is closing in on fifty restorations that they’ve undertaken, allowing fans to view films that, as even Scorsese himself states in some of the introductions included in this set, have been woefully underappreciated and rarely seen (even a cineaste of Scorsese’s reputation mentions that some of these films were “new” to him courtesy of the World Cinema Project). This third volume of films aggregates six interesting offerings that have at least some subtextual cross connections at times, but which serve as yet another example of what an incredible job the World Cinema Project does in bringing films of undeniable merit to a wider audience.

Perhaps to subliminally suggest the temporal breadth of the World Cinema Project, Dos Monjes, the oldest film in this set from 1934, is paired on a disc with Pixote, the newest film in this set from 1981. In some ways, though, it might be best to consider an iconic film which came a little bit less than halfway between 1934 and 1981 to get at least something of an idea of Dos Monjes' structural ingenuity, namely Akira Kurosawa's legendary Rashomon. Though it predates Kurosawa's film by a decade and a half more or less, Dos Monjes provides two differing accounts of both a previous crime and a "contemporary" skirmish that erupted as a result of it. The fact that the two "storytellers" are monks only adds to the peculiarity of things.

Dos Monjes might cheekily be accused of "upping" it title number to three, courtesy of its plot emphasis on a kind of ménage à trois featuring Juan (Víctor Urruchúa), Javier (Carlos Villatoro), and Ana (Magda Haller), a threesome which has ended in tragedy. That has led Juan and Javier to make a bid for penitence by becoming monks, though old battles evidently die hard, leading to a new showdown at the monastery.

If the story here is fascinating both in its inherent qualities and the "meta" aspect of seeing it refracted through two points of view, what may really raise a few eyebrows with regard to this film is its stylistic flourishes, which are more than a bit reminiscent of German Abstract Expressionism (you can hopefully get hints of this proclivity in some of the screenshots accompanying this review). Slightly askew framings, scenes bathed in chiaroscuro, and a near hallucinatory quality might ultimately remind some viewers of yet another iconic film, namely The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Just a cursory glance at some of the screenshots accompanying this review will support the perception that the film repeatedly deals with people looking through windows or some kind of barred opening, which probably subliminally suggests they're in some kind of emotional prison.

Dos Monjes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dos Monjes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Some opening text cards offer the following verbiage on the transfer:

Restored by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in collaboration with Filmoteca de la UNAM and the Cinematehque francaise.

This restoration utilized a dupe negative preserved at the Filmoteca de la UNAM and a 35 mm positive print provided by the Cinematheque francaise.

A careful study of the available elements showed that the positive print was more complete and presented a higher photographica quality than the dupe negative, and was therefore used as much as possible. Elements were scanned and restored at a 4K resolution.

While dialogue in the two elements matched, the sound mix presented several inconsistencies, namely in reels 3, 5, 6 and 8, where the UNAM dupe negative was used to integrate music missing in the Cinematheque francaise print.

The goal of the audio reconstruction and restoration was to equalize any differences. Because the audio is missing in both elements, some portions of reel 3 are presented without sound.

There's quite a bit of damage to be seen in this presentation, especially in the form of scratches and nicks which are probably more visible than usual due to some of the dark surroundings of the monastery in particular but also the film's prevalence of large areas of the frame being shrouded with black. What looks like emulsion damage also rolls through the frame at times. There are also a few missing frames, especially noticeable in the first scene featuring Javier starting his "confession" which leads to his flashback. Detail levels can still be quite commendable, and fine detail has moments of nice clarity, as in the music seen in screenshot 3 (though you'll also note the rather large scratch running down the center of the frame). Contrast is generally fine throughout, though occasionally those aforementioned blacks can be just a trifle hazy and milky looking. The use of extreme close-ups helps to elevate detail levels on faces. Grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation.

Dos Monjes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dos Monjes features an LPCM Mono track in the original Spanish which is in considerably better shape than the video side of things, but can't overcome issues like the missing frames, where little snippets of phonemes in dialogue can also be missing (the optional English subtitles can help in this regard). There's also some background hiss that becomes more evident in non-dialogue moments. Otherwise, though, things are rather nice sounding, at least given the context of the film's production era. The score sounds full bodied, including an almost The Phantom of the Opera-esque climax with Javier wailing on the monastery's huge pipe organ. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly.

Dos Monjes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Martin Scorsese Introduction (1080p; 2:40)


• Charles Ramirez Berg (1080p; 19:10) features the Austin based scholar discussing the film.

Dos Monjes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dos Monjes is a stylistic tour de force to be sure, but the flashbacks themselves are kind of reliant on a turgid, soap operatic, element that may suck a little life out of the proceedings (no pun intended, considering what happens). Still, this is a really effective film that seems to presage the Mexican Gothic idiom in several ways. Technical merits are generally okay if improvable. Recommended.