7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
When the ailing monk Javier recognizes a brother newly arrived at his cloister, he inexplicably becomes deranged and attacks him. What causes his madness?
Director: Juan Bustillo OroForeign | 100% |
Drama | 79% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Spanish: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
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.
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.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.
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.
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 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.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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