Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Night on Earth Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov June 13, 2015

Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth" (1991) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Soda Pictures. The only supplemental feature on the disc is an original trailer for the film. In English, French, Italian, and Finnish, with optional English and English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

The blind girl

Maverick American director Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth takes its audience on a wild trip through five busy cities -- Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki -- over the course of a single evening.

At LAX, a neurotic chain-smoking cabbie (Winona Ryder, The Age of Innocence) picks up a jaded talent agent (Gena Rowlands, Love Streams) who can’t wait to get back to her expensive Beverly Hills home. In the car, the two slowly warm up to each and then discover that they could not be any more different. Before they part ways, the agent offers the cabbie a role in an upcoming film.

Somewhere in Manhattan, a former clown (Armin Mueller-Stahl, Music Box) from East Germany who has just started working as a taxi driver picks up an angry black man (Giancarlo Esposito, Smoke) with a hat that looks exactly like his hat. But the immigrant has a terrible time driving his clunker and exchanges places with his client. Before they reach Brooklyn, fast-talking Rosie Perez joins them and unleashes an impressive number of F-bombs.

In Paris, a cabbie (Isaach De Bankolé, The Limits of Control) from the Ivory Coast gets seriously upset with his abusive black clients and abandons them in an unfriendly neighborhood. Then he picks up a blind girl (Beatrice Dalle, Domain), who proves to him that you don’t have to be able to see people in order to understand them.

The great Italian comedian Roberto Benigni plays a wacky cabbie that begins confessing his sexual sins to a priest (Paolo Bonacelli, Midnight Express) with a serious heart condition, but is forced to stop when he realizes that his client isn’t listening. Somewhere in the heart of Rome, the two part ways.

In bitterly cold Helsinki, a heartbroken cabbie (Matti Pellonpaa, La Vie de Bohème) tells his three drunken clients a story. At the end of it two of the men conclude that their freshly sacked friend who can barely stand on his feet isn’t that unlucky and abandon him.

The beauty and charm of this film are in the small details -- the way the cabbies and their clients casually reveal their insecurity and frustrate each other while trying to remain politically correct or warm up to each other against their will. These are the type of "meaningless" details big-budget Hollywood films routinely ignore.

There is plenty of Jarmusch’s trademark offbeat humor, but it would be quite a stretch to label Night on Earth a comedy. It is a touching and free of sentimentality observation of different people existing in modern societies across the globe who use words in a variety of different ways to create and destroy the common barriers that separate them.

The five vignettes use footage that was shot mostly inside the cabs, but one can easily tell when the locations change and with them the rhythm of life.

Jarmusch shot the film with acclaimed cinematographer Frederick Elmes (David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm). Original music by Tom Waits is used to enhance the moody atmosphere in each vignette.

Night on Earth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Soda Pictures.

The release has been sourced from a pre-existing master, but the film has a lovely organic appearance. Indeed, despite the fact that virtually the entire film takes place at night and at times the footage is quite dark, clarity and depth range from good to very good. The close-ups impress the most, but there are a few larger panoramic shots that also look wonderful. Some minor contrast fluctuations exist, but they are part of the original cinematography. Shadow definition, however, could be more convincing (see screencapture #20). There are no traces of problematic degraining corrections. However, with a stronger encode the grain would have been better exposed and resolved (see screencaptures #1 and 3). Still, there are no distracting anomalies. Furthermore, there are no traces of compromising sharpening adjustments. Colors are stable and natural, never appearing artificially boosted. Overall image stability is very good. Finally, there are absolutely no large debris, cuts, damage marks, or stains to report in this review. All in all, there is room for some improvements and optimizations, but the current technical presentation is indeed very pleasing. 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 Blu-ray player in order to access its content).

Night on Earth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (with portions of French, Italian, and Finnish). Optional English and English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

Depth and clarity are consistently very pleasing. Balance is also excellent, but I should mention that the film does not have an aggressive soundtrack. The overall range of nuanced dynamics is also limited, but this should not be surprising because the overwhelming majority of the footage is from inside the five cars driven by the cabbies. There are no pops, cracks, background hiss, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report in this review.

Night on Earth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original trailer for Night on Earth In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

• Trailers - trailers for other Soda Pictures releases of Jim Jarmusch films. In English, not subtitled. (12 min).

Night on Earth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maverick American director Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth takes its audience on a wild trip through five big cities -- Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki -- over the course of a single evening. It is a witty and hugely entertaining film with a fantastic cast beautifully lensed by Frederick Elmes. Soda Pictures' technical presentation of the film is good, but the Blu-ray release does not have any substantial supplemental features. Still, I think that it is well worth picking up. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.