6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A darkly comic look at Luciano, a charming and affable Italian fishmonger and family man whose sudden obsession with appearing on a reality show leads him down a rabbit hole of paranoia.
Starring: Aniello Arena, Nando Paone, Loredana Simioli, Nello Iorio, Nunzia SchianoForeign | 100% |
Drama | 85% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, French
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Alongside Il Divo director Paolo Sorrentino, Matteo Garrone is perhaps the most compelling voice in contemporary Italian cinema. His previous
feature, 2008's widely acclaimed Gomorrah—a gritty drama about his country's modern crime problems—is often cited by critics as evidence of
a Neo-Realism revival. But Garrone refuses to be pigeonholed. Despite its title, his new feature, Reality, is far more Fellini than Rossellini, with
darkly baroque comedy, an uneasy dreaminess, and a poison-dipped satirical spear point that pokes holes in both the highs and lows of Italian culture.
At its core, it's a great character study, following a man so determined to be cast on the Italian version of the reality show Big Brother that the
reality of his own life recedes inside a mist of paranoia and obsession.
Reality TV may be an easy target for satire, but Garrone avoids taking the cheap and obvious shots, preferring to examine what it is that makes these
types of television shows so addicting—the potential for 15-minute fame they offer their contestants, and the escapism they provide their audiences.
Adding a layer of thematic texture to the film is that fact its star, Aniello Arena, is a former mobster currently serving a life sentence in prison for his
involvement in the murder of three rival mafioso. To give himself something to do, he began performing in the prison theatre troupe, which is how he
met Garrone. Casting an imprisoned man as a free man who wants desperately to be imprisoned inside a house where he's constantly being monitored
is a deft postmodern touch, but it wouldn't work were Arena not such a charismatic and genuinely talented performer. The young DeNiro/Pacino vibe is
strong with this one. (Though he bears more of a resemblance to Sylvester Stallone.)
Reality arrives on Blu-ray—courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories—with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that gets everything right. This might not be the sharpest or most vibrant image you'll see this summer, but it's very clearly true to both source and intent. Shot on 35mm, the film's somewhat chunky grain structure is fully intact and unmodified, untouched by digital noise reduction, edge enhancement, or other types of filtering. The encode is solid too, with no major compression issues—no banding, splotchiness, macroblocking—or glitches. (I did notice some moire/aliasing on the fine parallel lines of the rooftops during the opening aerial shot, but that's about it.) The heaviness of the grain does cut into overall clarity a little—compared to finer grained films shot equivalently—but the organic-looking picture still displays lots of fine detail in faces, clothing, and other in-focus areas of the frame. The slightly pushed color grading works well too—everything is slightly warmer and richer than reality—while contrast and skin tones are kept balanced. There are no real distractions here; Reality is a pleasure to watch.
Oscilloscope gives us two audio options here, the default lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track and an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo mix-down, both in the film's native Italian. The highlight here is the wonderful score by acclaimed composer Alexandre Desplat (The Tree of Life, Zero Dark Thirty, The King's Speech), which sounds great—full, dynamic, and clear—and complements rather than overpowers the film's emotional tone. In front of this you'll hear a good amount of rear-channel ambience—falling rain, fish market clamor, pounding nightclub music—along with occasional cross-speaker effects, like Enzo's helicopter taking off. Dialogue is central, though, and it's always clear and at the front of the mix. The disc includes English and French subtitles, which appear in bright yellow lettering.
Reality may lack the scope and hard-edged realism of Matteo Garrone's last film—Gomorrah—but it's no less observant about the changes and contradictions of modern, culturally adrift Italian life. It's at once a social satire, a perceptive character study, and an existential inquiry into what it means to live well, and it solidly maintains Garrone's reputation as one of the most interesting filmmakers working in Italy today. Oscilloscope's Blu-ray release is the ideal way to way the film; the audio/video quality is excellent, the disc includes some fantastic extras—including a 20-minute interview with the director—and it all comes in one of Oscilloscope's characteristically gorgeous fold-out cardboard packages. Highly recommended!
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