7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A film director reflects on the choices he's made in life as past and present come crashing down around him.
Starring: Asier Etxeandia, Julieta Serrano, Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Kiti MánverForeign | 100% |
Drama | 38% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Spanish: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English, English SDH, French
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Federico Fellini’s 8½ is regularly cited as one of the best films of Fellini’s long and venerable career, and indeed as one of the best films — period. In a wending, dreamlike presentation, Fellini offers the tale of a film director named Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) with health problems and a creative block who frequently retreats into reveries about his childhood as a kind of therapy, though some of those memories are painful, including some subtext (and actual text) referring to the supposedly stifling environment of being raised in an overpoweringly Catholic nation. It’s certainly no coincidence that Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory apes many of these same foundational elements, and the connection is made perhaps even more overt due to the fact that the film director with health problems, a creative block and a penchant for dreaming about his childhood in this outing, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas, Academy Award nominated for this performance), has a former lover actually named Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia) who plays into the plot proceedings. Pain and Glory may ultimately not have Fellini’s almost magical ability to virtually hypnotize his audience to coax them into Guido’s at least occasionally trance like existence, but this is certainly one of Almodóvar’s more potent recent films.
Pain and Glory is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Sony Pictures Classics imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists Arri cameras and a 4K DI, and aside from one kind of surprising but brief moment of banding during the Sony masthead at disc boot up, I noticed no issues whatsoever to an often stunning visual presentation. The film has an intentionally dreamlike ambience in several of the flashback scenes, with detail levels consistently excellent despite a kind of hazy, dewy ambience in some moments. Fine detail is superb throughout the presentation in both timeframes, and you can virtually count the hairs on the adult Salvador's beard stubble in some scenes. There are a couple of curious stylistic conceits, including a frankly bizarre animated sequence early on documenting Salvador's health issues (see screenshots 3 and 16). The palette is beautifully warm and nicely suffused throughout this really appealing looking transfer.
Pain and Glory doesn't offer a lot of opportunity for "wow" sonic effects, but the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (in the original Spanish) provides really good placement of ambient environmental effects in both exterior and interior settings, along with more than capable support for the dialogue and occasional musical moments. There is some nice attention paid to differing ambient reverb in various locales, including some nice spaciousness in the kind of weird cavelike home the child Salvador lives in for part of the film. I noticed no issues whatsoever with regard to distortion, dropouts or other damage.
Anyone who is a fan of 8½ will most likely instantly see the pretty unmistakable connections between this film and that legendary Fellini opus, and if Pain and Glory can't quite compete (understandably, it should be added), it is a rather sweet and heartfelt film from Almodóvar and should almost certainly engage existing Almodóvar fans, while potentially wooing a few new ones. Performances are excellent throughout, and the technical merits and supplements on this release are first rate. Highly recommended.
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