6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Tired of her husband's philanderous ways, the mother of two daughters drowns her husband. With the reluctant help of the local coroner...
Starring: Bernard Hill, Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Joely Richardson, Bryan PringleDrama | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Peter Greenaway is an unabashed lover of painting and of arcane game playing, and both of those elements suffuse the often weirdly endearing Drowning by Numbers. Greenaway's filmography is not especially long, but it is often patently provocative and often dazzlingly visual, as anyone who has seen The Draughtsman's Contract , The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Prospero's Books or really just about any of the filmmaker's features will probably agree. Drowning by Numbers is certainly no exception, and if its narrative is deliberately skewed, that may well be because Greenaway himself is on hand in a supplement included on this disc stating overtly that he does not feel cinema is inherently a narrative art. That may strike some as a positively odd thing to say, but on at least one level, it's a rather salient example of the way Greenaway thinks about films, and how certain expectations about what any given film may provide can be both defied and at times deliberately undercut by Greenaway's patently idiosyncratic way of crafting a "story".
Drowning by Numbers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. The back cover of this release states this was culled from a "new 4K scan from the original negative personally supervised by Greenaway". Greenaway's films have been almost spectacularly ill served in the high definition era (I'm really hopeful this release augur further exploration of Greenaway's filmography by Severin), and the good news is this high definition offering is often ravishing, with a nicely organic appearance and a really beautifully suffused palette that almost oozes hues at times, per Greenaway's penchant for wanting to recreate a painterly mien with his cinematography (the DP on the film is the redoubtable Sacha Vierny). A lot of the framings of this film exploit the very idea of a frame, yet another allusion to paintings, and the 1080 version offers some surprisingly well detailed depth of field (something that Severin's 4K UHD version arguably improves on). Grain is organic looking throughout, though it does have a tendency to clump and become rather yellowish throughout the film when scenes feature brighter backgrounds. All in all, I tended to find the grain resolution a little more pleasing in the 1080 version than on the 4K UHD disc. Detail levels are typically excellent throughout, but Greenaway and Vierny often seem intent on stuffing frames so full of visual information that it can be hard to take it all in at times.
Drowning by Numbers features a nicely rendered DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. The film has a rather interesting, almost minimalist, score by Michael Nyman, one based on just a couple of measures of Mozart. That can lend a certain repetitive aspect to some of the underscore, but actual fidelity is fine. A glut of outdoor material also provides ample opportunity for nicely designed ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
Actually kind of like the works of Terry Gilliam, Peter Greenaway's films are probably not for everyone, and that is probably perhaps truer than ever with regard to Drowning by Numbers, which is odd by even Greenaway standards. I personally love Greenaway, and was delighted to see this in my review queue. It's a quirky film that probably never adds up, despite its prevalence of numbers, but it's stunning to simply watch and the performances are rather sly at times. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very appealing. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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