6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
The wealthy and self-assured Vincent meets his blue collar half-brother Clay at their father's funeral and is struck by their similarity. He decides to murder Clay and take his identity, only Clay survives the assassination attempt with no memory and is mistaken for Vincent.
Starring: Dennis Haysbert, Mel Harris (I), Sab Shimono, Dina Merrill, Michael Harris (I)Drama | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Some indication of the wide number of influences informing Suture comes courtesy of the copy on the back cover insert, copy which references two great but highly disparate John Frankenheimer films, The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds , along with a similar pairing of Hiroshi Teshigahara’s films, The Face of Another and Woman of the Dunes. Add to that questionably linkable quartet several more Asian films which are mentioned in the commentary included on this release, a commentary which also glances at least cursorily at Edward Dmytryk’s 1965 amnesia thriller Mirage, and those coming to the film "unanointed" (so to speak) may have at least some idea of the intellectual acuity necessary to make it through this particular labyrinth. Suture is a film built upon a seemingly insurmountable conceit: that half-brothers Vincent (Michael Harris) and Clay (Dennis Haysbert) are more or less identical twins, despite the fact that one of them is black and the other white. It’s the sort of structural artifice which is so over the top that it requires the audience to simply surrender and let the narrative take them where it will, without relying on traditional ideas of “logic”. When one adds in a doctor rather cheekily named Renee Descartes (Mel Harris), that whole vaunted “cogito ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”) philosophy which attempts to define “identity” seems to have been put under a veritable cinematic microscope, dissected and then left in several pieces for the audience to reassemble as it wills. Suture is a fascinating film for any number of reasons, and it contains some lustrous black and white cinematography by Greg Gardiner (Men in Black II, Herbie Fully Loaded), but it may simply be too “tricky” for its own good, at least for some.
Suture is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's typically informative insert booklet contains a wealth of information about this transfer:
The original 35mm camera negatives were scanned in 4K resoultion on a pin-registered Scannity at Prasad Corporation Digital Film Technology in Burbank.Some of the most interesting information is actually contained on the following page, however, under the heading A note on the restoration:
Film grading and restoration was completed at Deluxe Restoration, London. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and light scratches were removed through a combination of digital restoration tools. Overall image stability was also improved.
Additional grading was done at Box Motion Studios, New York under supervision from filmmakers David Siegel and Scott McGehee.
While working on Suture, the restoration team noticed an intermittent banding issue appearing on the images that became more pronounced once grading was applied. Further research revealed this to be a fault of the original negative, most likely the result of lab developer pressure marks from tire rollers during initial photochemical processing. THe negative was re-scanned using different settings in an attempt to diminish the effect of the banding, and a 35mm interpolative [sic?--I assume they mean interpositive] was also sourced to compare the effect against the negative. Unfortunately, neither exercise resulted in a satisfactory solution to the banding issue and no digital restoration process proved to be effective in removing this artifact.Arrow's openness is to be commended, and the funny thing (to me, anyway) is that the banding issue is relatively minor when taken into the overall context. As can be seen in several of the screenshots accompanying this review, detail levels are often fantastically precise, and strong, stable contrast promotes inky blacks and nicely modulated grayscale. There is still some very slight image instability (some noticeable lateral wobble during the credits is one example), and at times the generally nicely resolved grain field verges close to mosquito noise territory (see several screenshots with areas of white, notably the top of the bus in screenshot 8).
[. . .]
As no suitable digital solution could be found to remove this banding effect, the decision was made, together with the filmmakers, to present this restoration of Suture with the issue intact.
Suture's LPCM 2.0 track provides ample support for dialogue and occasional voiceover narration. Occasional musical interludes, like the rolicking Tom Jones tune the commentary jokes cost the team their entire music budget to license, also sound clear and bright with no damage or distortion issues.
- Scene 117 (1080p; 1:07)
- Scene 118 (1080p; 00:49)
- Scene 119 (1080p; 1:47)
Suture is one of those films that appeals quite strongly to certain corners of the intellect while also coming off, at least intermittently and perhaps unintentionally, as the product of a team out to prove just how smart they really are. The film is never less than fascinating, but it's a fascination built upon some fairly shaky artifices that seem ironically to not have been completely thought out. Still, I personally really liked Suture, and this release boasts generally very good to excellent technical merits and Arrow's typical bounteous supply of supplements. Recommended.
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