Il Postino Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Il Postino Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 30, 2019

Michael Radford's "Il Postino" a.k.a. "The Postman" (1994) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Cult Films. The only supplemental feature on the disc is an exclusive new video interview with Michael Radford. In Italian, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

The postman

The plan was to have Massimo Troisi direct Il Postino, but he fell seriously ill and called Michael Radford to finish what he had started. Troisi still played the poor postman, but he passed away a day after the film was completed.

The film tells the story of Mario (Troisi, What Time Is It?, Splendor), a shy and poor man living with his father on a beautiful but secluded Italian island. Life has a steady rhythm here and it seems like nothing exciting ever happens.

But one day the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (played by the great Philippe Noiret, Cinema Paradiso, Tango) arrives on the island and everything changes. Mario becomes fascinated with the foreigner and decides to become a postman so that he can see him more often. The big piles of letters that women send to Neruda then quickly convince Mario that he must become a poet.

The two men begin talking and eventually become friends. Their relationship, however, is more like that between a teacher and his pupil. When they are together they actually learn from each other -- Mario carefully listens to Neruda when he explains what it takes to be a great poet, while Neruda observes Mario and discovers great truths in his simple observations about life.

Eventually, Mario meets the stunningly beautiful Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta, The Second Wife) and falls madly in love with her. But he is so shy that he can’t bring himself to tell her how he feels about her. Determined to win her heart, he asks his friend Neruda to help him out.

Il Postino is a simple and very beautiful yet enormously sad film. There are a number of sequences where it becomes quite clear that Troisi simply isn’t well and that he struggles to be the romantic postman. The eyes never lie.

And yet one never doubts that the postman is a real person. He is a simple man who has fallen in love and suddenly realized that he does not know how to express himself before the woman of his dreams. Every man knows the feeling – she is the right woman, the one that would make him the happiest man on Earth, but how do you tell her that without sounding utterly ridiculous?

Noiret is equally convincing as the communist poet who knows exactly what to say to win a woman’s heart. Perhaps only the fact that he must recite his lines in a foreign language makes him sound a bit odd at times.

Cucinotta isn’t well-known on this side of the Atlantic and this is quite unfortunate because she is incredibly beautiful. There is natural rawness in her performance that very much reminds of the one that Monica Bellucci’s character had in Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malèna.

The panoramic vistas from the island are fantastic. Obviously the locations were carefully selected, but Franco Di Giacomo‘s lensing could not have been more effective.

The light and very elegant music score was created by the legendary Bulgarian-Argentine-Italian composer Luis Bakalov, who won an Academy Award for it in 1994.

Il Postino Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Il Postino arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Cult Films.

The release is sourced from the same restored master that Warner Bros. Italia used for this Region-B release, which we reviewed in 2016. However, this is an even older master that was prepared a few years earlier. So, you should expect to see some of the typical limitations that appear on these types of older masters. For example, while most of the daylight footage looks quite nice, some of the darker/indoor footage tends to struggle with light black crush and sporadic flatness. Grain exposure is uneven as well, and in various areas the grain can easily appear somewhat noisy. Also, these particular areas could have benefited from some specific encoding optimizations because from time to time they are on the verge of producing artifacts. Thankfully, the visuals manage to hold rather well, so even on a larger screen they remain mostly pleasing. The colors are stable, but ideally the primaries can be better saturated and there should be wider ranges of nuances. Image stability is good, but occasionally trained will will spot very light shakiness within the frame. It is nothing serious that you should worry about, though. There are no distracting large debris, cuts, damage marks, or other similar imperfections to report. Bottom line is this: If you are wondering whether the Blu-ray represents a good upgrade in quality over old DVD releases of the film, the answer is yes it does. (When I purchased the Italian Blu-ray release I had only the North American DVD release of the film in my library, which was non-anamorphic, so for me the upgrade was rather substantial). However, a proper new 2K/4K remaster will undoubtedly introduce additional meaningful improvements. My score is 3.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Il Postino Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Italian LPCM 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The lossless track is very nice. It has proper depth, clarity remains pleasing throughout the entire film, and there are no balance issues. The music score has good dynamic qualities as well. If the audio is remastered in the future it is possible that a few areas can benefit -- only in terms of balance, not dynamic strength -- but I have to speculate that these will most likely be 'cosmetic' improvements.

Il Postino Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Poetry in Motion - in this new video interview, director Michael Radford remembers his initial interactions with Massimo Troisi and explains in great detail how Il Postino came to exist. There are also some very interesting comments about the scoring of the film -- initially, the plan was to have Ennio Morricone, but because he apparently told Radford that he does not do "discreet music" Luis Bacalov was brought on board -- and its incredible reception. The interview was conducted exclusively for Cult Films. In English, not subtitled. (46 min).

• Cover - a reversible cover with vintage poster art.

Il Postino Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Il Postino is one of the simplest and most beautiful romantic films you would ever see. It is probably the saddest one as well because it was Massimo Troisi's dream project and he passed away a day after the film was completed. This Blu-ray from Cult Films is sourced from the same older restored master that initially Warner Bros. Italia used to produce this European release. However, it has a very, very nice exclusive new video interview with the director Radford. RECOMMENDED.