6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Introverted number-cruncher Simon James finds his life unsettled after the appearance of his doppelgänger, the outgoing and womanizing James Simon.
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn, Yasmin Paige, Noah TaylorDrama | 100% |
Dark humor | 89% |
Surreal | 88% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
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 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There are obvious similarities between The Double, the second feature from director and co-writer Richard Ayoade, and Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Both exist in alternative worlds constructed from objects and landscapes that are familiar but stuck together oddly and that operate according to their own internal logic, and in both films the very fabric of reality seems to rise up against the hero's efforts to achieve freedom and happiness. But Ayoade and Gilliam have different sensibilities, and The Double is an entirely different experience from Brazil, despite the latter's obvious visual influence (although that influence could just as readily be attributed to Metropolis, which was also a key precursor to Brazil). Brazil pitted the individual against a repressive state that cloaked its totalitarian behavior in a benevolent guise of efficiently providing freedom, security and essential services like air conditioning, but The Double's adversary is . . . well, that's the question. Ayoade and co-writer Avi Korine (brother of filmmaker Harmony Korine, with whom he wrote Mister Lonely) have freely adapted a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, retaining the Russian author's psychological focus, but externalizing everything that Dostoyevsky left ambiguously inside his protagonist's head. In Ayoade's darkly comic fantasy, the hero really does have a double, and deciding just exactly who and what he is—an issue that Ayoade leaves open for interpretation—is an important element of the film's appeal.
The Double was shot on film by Erik Wilson, who was Ayoade's cinematographer on Submarine. In the extras, Wilson says that they considered shooting the film in black-and-white, probably to emphasize the drabness of Simon James's existence, but opted instead for a dull palette with just a few strong colors used for strategic purposes. Hannah tends to be associated with rich shades of blue, and intense reds appear at emotional moments. Otherwise, the predominant hues are yellow, tan and gray. A comparison of the "behind the scenes" footage in the extras to the finished product will demonstrate just how much of the film's look was accomplished by color timing in post-production, courtesy of a digital intermediate (from which the Blu-ray was presumably sourced). Magnolia Home Video's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray nicely renders the stylized world that Ayoade and his production team have created, preserving all the fine detail of the bizarre production design even in low-light scenes without strong colors to differentiate objects and surfaces. Blacks, when they occur, are truly black, which makes the various shades of gray seem all that more obvious. Contrast can be strong and eye-catching when Ayoade wants to draw your attention—usually when a scene involves Hannah or some area of the company's activity from which Simon feels excluded—or it can be deliberately understated, so that both Simon and the viewer strain to make out a sight in the distance. A fine grain pattern from the original film negative remains visible, but it is so fine that most viewers won't even notice it. In a growing (and unfortunate) trend, Magnolia has placed The Double on a BD-25, and the bitrate is a surprisingly low 18.00 Mbps—"surprisingly", because the image wasn't originated digitally. However, despite the low average bitrate, The Double doesn't suffer from any of the telltale signs of overcompression. The compressionist must have been able to achieve this result by careful allocation, especially in the first half of the film, before Simon's double appears, when his life is characterized by stasis and the film has many static shots. Still, one has to wonder how much better The Double could have looked with the greater bandwidth allowed by a BD-50.
Ayoade has said that he spent months working with his mixing and effects crew on The Double's 5.1 soundtrack, which is presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA. It's a memorable track full of odd sounds that have little to do with realism. At least on a sonic level, one could argue that The Double is all happening inside the disturbed mind of someone who imagines that he's both Simon James and James Simon (and may be neither). In one telling example, the two "co-workers" exit the office together, and their footsteps are loudly audible; then they both stop to wait for a bus, and the footsteps continue. Even before James appears, Simon hears odd sounds, like the loud ticks of clocks in the office, possibly counting down the remainder of his life, or a distant roar, as if the thoughts of others were pressing in on him (a cold washcloth on the head stills the din). Of course, the various machines in the office, as well as the subway, elevators and various elements in Simon's apartment building all have distinctive aural signatures, none of them quite like anything in the world as we know it. All of these have been placed in the surround environment and blended with the dramatic, even melodramatic, score by Andrew Hewitt (another Submarine veteran) and a few eccentric musical choices like the 1963 hit "Sukiyaki", the only Japanese-language song ever to top the Billboard 100 charts in the United States.
As Ayoade notes in his interview, a psychological novella like The Double differs from the writings of George Orwell or Aldous Huxley, in which the individual must battle against an encroaching and almost omnipotent state authority. The same essential distinction separates Ayoade's film from Brazil. In Brazil, Sam Lowry begins as a lowly government employee, but he doesn't experience real freedom until he joins the rebellion against the state that he's served all his life. Sam escapes (after a fashion), but the state endures. In The Double, by contrast, the state's only representatives are a few policemen. No one is "after" Simon James, or trying to run his life. They barely notice him, even after his exact double appears out of nowhere one day. Imagine if Kafka's Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect—and no one cared. Now that's alienation. Highly recommended.
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