6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Ivo Salvini wanders a strange, dreamlike landscape and encounters various oddball characters as he attempts to win the heart of the woman he loves.
Starring: Roberto Benigni, Paolo Villaggio, Nadia OttavianiForeign | 100% |
Drama | 74% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Italian: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The films of Federico Fellini often attempt to bypass the rational mind, instead communicating directly with the subconscious or Collective Unconscious or whatever lizard (or other creature) brain is able to process information without “thinking” too much about it. I’ll never forget my first viewing experience of a Fellini film, long (loooong) before the days of home video, in a college Film Theory course where the teacher screened 8½. I of course had heard and read a lot about Fellini by then, but nothing really prepared me for the sheer quasi hallucinatory impact of seeing Marcello Mastroianni “floating” away from an already patently bizarre Italian traffic jam. Sure, a sequence like that can be “explained” by saying “it’s all a dream”, but there’s a visceral impression delivered by Fellini’s imagery that eludes any mere description, at least in my estimation. That inability to properly articulate Fellini’s (literal) vision may be one reason why The Voice of the Moon has never really received its due, at least on this side of the pond, a lack of recognition that seems especially odd given the fact that it was the venerable auteur’s last film before he died in 1993. Dealing as it does with (again, literal) lunatics, i.e., those under the magical sway of that glowing orb in the nighttime sky, the film may simply inherently be too “non verbal” to conform to traditional methods of analysis, let alone any stodgy “criticism”. The Voice of the Moon is in fact very much like a poem, a seemingly random aggregation of images and ideas that swirl hypnotically, rather like tides under the influence of that aforementioned nighttime satellite.
The Voice of the Moon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Academy with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:
The Voice of the Moon (La voce della luna) has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 with Italian mono audio.The Voice of the Moon is bathed in slate grays and pale yellows, making it appropriately "lunatic", and the mist strewn environments combined with sometimes fairly heavy grain and dark shooting conditions can sometimes lead to slight deficits in fine detail levels, but otherwise this is a really ravishing looking transfer that preserves the film's rather unique look. The more brightly lit sequences, as in some of the rooftop moments or the "tourist" moments, pop with an accurate looking palette and commendable detail levels. There are a lot of nighttime sequences in the film, as may be gleaned from its very title, but shadow definition is really rather good throughout this presentation. Whatever restoration efforts were undertaken have ameliorated any major signs of age related wear and tear.
All restoration work was carried out at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a pin- registered Arriscan and was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master.
Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques. Image stability was also improved.
The mono Italian language track was remastered from the optical sound track negatives. There are times in which audio synchronisation will appear slighlty loose against the picutre, due to the fact that the audio was recorded in post-production.
The Voice of the Moon features a fine if pretty narrow sounding LPCM 2.0 mono track in the original Italian. As noted above in Arrow's "liner notes", post-dubbing has made this another exercise in near surreality, since lip movements quite often don't match the sounds emanating from them (this was actually part of what made my first viewing of 8 ½ years ago so memorable, as the sound design seemed detached from the imagery at times, something I didn't then realize was due to Italian films almost always being shot silently, with sound added later). There is a playful quality to the sound design here, with odd effects intruding at times, but with rather forceful renderings of some of the unexpected cues (I won't spoil one of the funnier ones). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.
The Voice of the Moon may not be prime Fellini, but it's still very good Fellini, and Benigni own peculiar and rather distinctive charms add an enjoyable layer to this outing. The "narrative" is intentionally discursive, building "meaning" out of sometimes disjunctive imagery and dialogue. As such, this is one of those films where it's probably best to just let go and accept the fact that you've entered Fellini's dream and that he's in charge. Technical merits are strong, and The Voice of the Moon comes Recommended.
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