I Knew Her Well Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

I Knew Her Well Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov February 2, 2016

Winner of three Silver Ribbon Awards, including Best Director and Best Original Story, Antonio Pietrangeli's "I Knew Her Well" a.k.a. "Io la conoscevo bene" (1965) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; new video interview with actress Stefania Sandrelli; new video interview with Italian film scholar Luca Barattoni; and archival footage from a testing session. The release also arrives with an illustrated leaflet featuring an essay by journalist Alexander Stille. In Italian, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The beautiful girl

Adriana Astarelli (Stefania Sandrelli, The Conformist, Seduced and Abandoned) is convinced that she has what it takes to be a movie star. She only needs to meet the right producer that will recognize her potential and kickstart her career.

But in the Eternal City, the men Adriana attracts can see only the perfect curves of her beautiful body. Some are suave hustlers and thieves; others are wealthy chameleons who have been living double lives for years. She meets them through shady agents who claim to have helped many provincial girls like her fulfill their dreams and at the lavish parties where bored stars and their lackeys, desperate actors and ambitious reporters like to mingle.

With a bit of luck, Adriana manages to get a few modeling gigs. They are short, and the pay is awful, but she is convinced that it is the experience that matters the most. Then a handsome young director asks her to pose for a commercial that will be screened in theaters across the country.

The road to success, however, proves a lot more difficult and dangerous than Adriana had initially anticipated. After a series of bitter disappointments and odd ‘relationships’, she slowly begins to realize that the system she has been trying to crack open simply does not accept girls like her. It temporarily lures them into its web, treats them as objects, and eventually replaces them with the next wave of beautiful newcomers.

The atmosphere of Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well does remind of the one Federico Fellini captured in the legendary La Dolce Vita, but they are very different films. There are a couple of reasons why:

In Pietrangeli’s film, the beautiful girl is an outsider who never becomes corrupted by the system. Until the very end, she remains a dreamer who accepts the people around her with their flaws and weaknesses. Because she also trusts them, she suffers, and the film embraces her with her agony. In Fellini’s film, the jaded reporter is inside the system, he is already part of it. He routinely lies and mistreats the men and women around him, and the film simply observes their misery.

The contrasts in Pietrangeli’s film are less subtle and more realistic. It is why its cynicism is also much more disturbing. In Fellini’s film there is excess and decadent elegance that can make it difficult to feel the pain of the humiliated -- it is immediately obvious who they are, but the majority of the time they look like elegant clowns who have come to terms with their sad roles. Pietrangeli captures the humiliation differently -- in his film no one wears masks and the mistreatment is genuinely disturbing. (See the party segment in which Enrico Maria Salerno’s star is embarrassed with the awful speech and later on Ugo Tognazzi’s Gigi Baggini is forced to entertain him).

Pietrangeli’s film also leaves one with the impression that there is a solid system in place, a bit like a giant grinder, which sucks people in and then either unceremoniously reshapes their personalities and lives or quickly crushes them. In Fellini’s film there is glorious chaos that attracts all kinds of different socialites and the occasional few naive dreamers but also allows them to roam free.

Sandrelli is brilliantly cast as the ambitious provincial girl who discovers the mean side of the Eternal City. There is sincerity in her performance that actually makes it awfully difficult to tell if she is in fact acting. The supporting cast includes such renowned European actors as Nino Manfredi, Jean-Claude Brialy, Mario Adorf, and Franco Fabrizi. A very young Franco Nero also appears in a few short segments as a lonely garage attendant.

The film has a brilliant soundtrack which was created by the prolific Italian composer Piero Piccioni (Camille 2000, The 10th Victim). Also used in the film are Glbert Becaud’s wonderful hit “Toi”, Sergio Endrigo’s “Dimmi La Verita”, and Peppno Di Capri’s “Roberta”, amongst others.

Pietrangeli shot the film with cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi, who worked with many of the era’s biggest directors. His credits include such classic films as Bell’ Antonio, Mafioso, Violent Life, The Visit, Porcile, The Damned, and The Skin.

I Knew Her Well Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 10870p transfer, Antonio Pietrangeli's I Knew Her Well arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the leaflet provided with this Blu-ray release:

"This new 4K digital restoration was created in partnership with the Cineteca di Bologna from the 35mm original camera negative and a 35mm fine-grain positive. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the soundtrack negative. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX4.

Colorist: Lee Kline/Criterion, New York."

The film has been recently restored in 4K and looks simply astonishing in high-definition. During the daylight footage depth and clarity are excellent, but the nighttime/darker footage frequently looks equally impressive as well. The blacks and whites are solid and there is a wide range of healthy grays. Light and well resolved grain is visible throughout the entire film. There are a few sequences where small fluctuations are visible, but they are part of the original cinematography. There are absolutely no traces of compromising sharpening adjustments. Image stability is terrific -- there are no bumps, awkward transitions, edge flicker, or other basic stability issues. Finally, there are no large scratches, debris, cuts, stains, or damaged frames to report in our review. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

I Knew Her Well Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Italian LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

Immediately after I received my disc I went straight to the segment with Glbert Becaud's "Toi". The song now sounds quite incredible. The rest of the wonderful tracks also do not disappoint -- the music is lush and has plenty of depth. Of course, it is pitched correctly. (This was a major issue on the old Italian DVD release). The dialog is clean, stable, and always easy to follow. There are no pops, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report in our review.

I Knew Her Well Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Stefania Sandrelli - in this brand new video interview, actress Stefania Sandrelli recalls her interaction with scriptwriter Ettore Scola (A Special Day, Splendor) during the casting process, and discusses Antonio Pietrangeli's directing methods, the dilemmas Adriana Astarelli faces and the fact that women in contemporary societies still struggle with many of the same dilemmas, as well as the evolution of her career after I Knew Her Well. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in September 2015. In Italian, with optional English subtitles. (10 min, 1080p).

• Luca Barattoni - in this brand new video interview, film scholar Luca Barattoni, author of Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema, discusses the career and legacy of Antonio Pietrangeli, some of the key themes in his films, I Knew Her Well and the experiences of its protagonist, and some of the obvious similarities between the film and Federico Fellini's legendary La Dolce Vita as well as the specific time period these the two films emerged from. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in November 2015. In English, not subtitled. (22 min, 1080p).

• Trailer - original trailer for I Knew Her Well. Music only. (4 min, 1080p).

• Sandrelli's Audition - presented here is archival footage from Stefania Sandrelli's testing session for her role of Adriana Astarelli in I Knew Her Well In Italian, with imposed English subtitles. (6 min, 1080p).

• Leaflet - an illustrated leaflet featuring an essay by journalist Alexander Stille.

I Knew Her Well Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The beautiful Stefania Sandrelli plays an ambitious provincial girl who believes that she has what it takes to become a movie star in the Eternal City in this very elegant, at times quite funny, but incredibly cynical film from the great director Antonio Pietrangeli. I have to say that I Knew Her Well is one of the most important additions to Criterion's catalog in a very long time because Pietrangeli's work, which has been undeservedly ignored in North America, is every bit as good as that of the grand masters of Italian cinema. The film has been recently restored in 4K and looks absolutely magnificent in high-definition. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.