7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Jason, a quiet cameraman, dreams of directing his first horror movie. Bob Marshall, a wealthy producer, accepts to finance his movie on one condition : Jason has 48 hours to find the best scream in the history of film. During his search, Jason gradually gets lost in a nightmare.
Starring: Alain Chabat, Jonathan Lambert, Élodie Bouchez, John Glover, Brad GreenquistDark humor | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
What is reality? And, indeed, what is Reality? If films like Rashômon subvert the viewing experience by making the audience question what “truth” is, what should one make of a film that deliberately skews the whole viewing process from both within and without, delivering a reflective environment where various plotlines intersect willy nilly, albeit with various characters struggling to make sense of it all, a proclivity some audience members may understand only too well by the time this whimsical if deliberately obfuscatory enterprise comes to a close. Reality is an inherently cheeky title for this film for at least a couple of reasons. The film plays with ideas of what exactly is real and what (for example) is being told in a film within this film. Writer-director Quentin Dupieux, a burgeoning auteur with a number of outre efforts already to his name (Rubber, Wrong, Wrong Cops), then ups the ante by introducing a little girl whose name is Reality. Is Reality (the little girl) part of “reality” (i.e., the “story”—such as it is—of the film), or a character in the film within the film? Dupieux may seem to suggest an answer, but as with many (if not most) things surrounding this fascinating if opaque filmmaker, it’s perhaps best not to jump to conclusions. When a film has a cooking show host (who wears a giant animal outfit) approach a would be film director and claim he thinks they’re the same character, Dupieux may (or indeed may not) be offering a clue that this is a dreamscape which will elude any rationally based critique and/or analysis.
Reality is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of IFC Midnight (a somewhat odd entity for this film, perhaps because of the perceived "horror" aspect of Waves) and Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. While online data about the film is somewhat scarce, it appears this is a digitally shot feature, one that boasts a generally sharp and smooth picture. A lot of the film has been graded toward a slightly brownish-beigish side of things, an interesting choice which looks just slightly desaturated a lot of the time but which does not detrimentally affect detail and fine detail in any meaningful way. Bright outdoor scenes pop quite well, at least within the confines of the somewhat tamped down palette. Brightness looks artificially boosted in some of these same scenes though, something that tends to push highlights into clipping territory a couple of times. Detail is still generally strong throughout the presentation, offering elements like skin rashes or bristly costume fur with appropriate precision.
Reality features an interesting and subtle DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (largely in English, though with swaths of French with forced English subtitles). Dupieux repeatedly utilizes a snippet from Philip Glass' Music With Changing Parts, something that provides the film with an ostinati anchor that is otherwise missing in the freewheeling screenplay. Dialogue tends to be front and center, but occasional ambient environmental effects dot the surrounds. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range enjoys some spikes courtesy of elements like gunfire and screams. For the record, there's also a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix included on this Blu-ray.
Quentin Dupieux may see himself as a latter day Luis Buñuel, but while he may have the Spanish auteur's flair for the surreal, he hasn't yet mastered the ability to link his dreamscapes to something more patently mundane and everyday feeling, something that always helped to create the remarkable dialectic that informed many if not most of Buñuel's best films. Reality pretends that it has a lot on its cinematic mind, but it tends to ultimately come off as something of a goof, an unabashedly and unapologetically weird amalgamation of bizarre characters and storylines floating around in a sort of roiling bouillabaisse that those with a taste for the unusual will probably find fairly filling if not especially nutritious. Technical merits for Reality are generally strong, and with caveats noted, this release comes Recommended.
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