Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

The Voyeur Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov December 18, 2015

Tinto Brass' "The Voyeur" a.k.a. "L'uomo che guarda" (1994) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of independent U.S. distributors Cult Epics. The supplemental features on the disc include original trailers; archival interview with director Tinto Brass; and gallery of stills from the film. In English or Italian, with optional English subtitles. Region-Free.

The professor

The Voyeur is based on Alberto Moravia’s excellent novel of the same name about a young professor’s complex relationship with his ill father. Some of the novel’s darker overtones are retained, but the film’s atmosphere is drastically different.

The handsome professor Dodo (Francesco Casale) struggles to understand why his beautiful wife, Silvia (Katarina Vasilissa), has left him. He suspects that she has been seeing another man, but isn’t convinced that she has stopped loving him. When they meet in a fancy restaurant somewhere in the city and she flirts with him, he concludes that it is possible to win her back.

Meanwhile, one of Dodo’s beautiful students attempts to seduce him and unlocks his imagination. After that Dodo’s erotic fantasies reshape his reality and even manage to alter his identity -- he becomes a voyeur. Around the same time Dodo becomes convinced that his ill father (Franco Branciaroli) knows exactly why Silvia has abandoned him.

The psychological element from Moravia’s novel that defines the professor’s transformation and his relationship with his father is completely removed. Instead, Brass focuses on the supposedly natural -- according to Brass -- relationship between voyeurism and eroticism.

The film is broken into multiple episodes in which Brass does what he does best to prove that he is right. The elegant women are filmed in ways suggesting that men like Dodo are not imagining things. He and others like him simply see the beauty that excites most men but react differently to it. A few episodes also reveal that some women like the admiration and even look for the beauty as well.

Even though there is some food for thought, this isn’t a film that desperately wants to change perceptions. Like All Ladies Do It, Frivolous Lola, and Cheeky!, it is unapologetically flirty and carries a healthy dose of Brass’s familiar sense of humor.

As it is always the case with Brass’ films, the principal actors are very attractive. However, while the erotic scenes are all wonderfully lensed, the chemistry between the actors is rather problematic. Vasilissa, in particular, looks very elegant, but more often than not it is quite easy to tell that she is aware that the camera is closely following her moves. Cristina Garavaglia, who plays the ill father’s sexy maid, also struggles to look natural, though considering the type of character she plays it should not be difficult to understand why. As a result, many of these scenes actually look like longer commercials done for late night TV.

Brass shot The Voyeur with Massimo Di Venanzo, who lensed some of his most stylish films, including All Ladies Do It and Black Angel a.k.a. Senso '45.

The breezy soundtrack features fantastic sax solos that greatly enhance the desired atmosphere. It was created by the prolific Italian composer Riz Ortolani (Dino Risi’s Il Sorpasso, Lucio Fulci’s Don't Torture a Duckling, Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust).

The Voyeur Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Tinto Brass' The Voyeur arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Cult Epics.

It has become quite obvious now that there are not a lot of good masters for Tinto Brass' older films. It is even clearer that distributors are not willing to remaster these films. This is very unfortunate because not only are they quite beautiful, but typically have soundtracks that were created by some of the greatest European composers.

This release of The Voyeur is also sourced from an old master. The bulk of the film looks very soft and depth and clarity typically range from average to problematic. The darker footage, in particular, looks very weak -- shadow definition is poor and there is plenty of crushing. Colors are anemic and there are some stability issues. Plenty of important nuances are missing as well. There are no traces of recent degraining corrections, but plenty of filtering must have been applied earlier. (I don't know when the master was prepared, but it must have been a long time ago). The framing is also unconvincing. It appears that the film has been zoomed in and as a result there is important information that is missing from the top of the frame. Finally, overall image stability is good, but there are a few shaky transitions. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location).

The Voyeur Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and Italian Dolby Digital 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the Italian track.

I viewed the film with the English track. Depth and clarity are not disappointing, but it is obvious that there is plenty of room for improvement. The music score -- from the great genre composer Riz Ortolani -- feels a bit flat and there are even some balance fluctuations. The dialog is easy to follow, but from time to time it sounds thin. There are no audio dropouts or digital distortions to report in our review.

The Voyeur Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Tinto Brass - in this archival interview, director Tinto Brass explains when he decided to adapt Alberto Moravia's novel The Voyeur, and discusses the important relationship between voyeurism and eroticism and how it is represented in his work, the key difference between his take on voyeurism (positive) and Alberto Moravia's take (a rather negative one), the visual style of The Voyeur, etc. The interview was conducted in July 2007. In English, not subtitled. (24 min, 480/60i).

• Tinto Brass Trailers -
  
  1. Monamour
  2. Kick the Cock (included on the Monamour disc).
  3. Cheeky!
  4. Private
  5. Black Angel

• Photo Gallery - collection of stills from the film. (2 min, 1080p).

The Voyeur Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It is great to see that one by one Tinto Brass' films are transitioning to Blu-ray, but it is unfortunate that so many of these releases are sourced from very old masters. To be fair, they still look a lot better than previous DVD releases, but I personally wanted to see them fully remastered. Cult Epics and Nico B. deserve a lot of credit for making Brass' films available on Blu-ray in the U.S., but The Voyeur is difficult to recommend -- it looks quite weak in high-definition. I really hope that Paprika, which is arguably Brass' best film, will get a different treatment.