7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Italian immigrant Antonio Canova becomes entangled in relationships with his landlady and the young, hot-blooded Spaniard, Josefa. As Josefa's life disintegrates through rape and a necessitous marriage to a brutish foreman, Toni is caught up in a series of marriages gone sour and the psychological fragility of those he cares for.
Starring: Charles BlavetteForeign | 100% |
Drama | 8% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
While there's some perhaps slightly perplexing disagreement in the supplements on this release as to whether or not Luchino Visconti actually had
any
direct involvement with this film (the commentary starts out by mentioning and then discussing at some length his association with the production,
while an analysis by Christopher Faulkner explicitly states that this widely accepted trivia is in fact wrong*), there's clearly a through line from
Toni
to the Italian Neorealist movement, as even Jean Renoir himself at least alludes to in his archival introduction to the film also included on this
disc as a bonus item. Renoir, despite his almost monolithic contemporary reputation, was not that successful in his early film career, and in fact
seemed to be a kind of "pretender" cashing in on his justly famous surname. The fact that sales of his father's legendary paintings (discussed in
one
of the supplements) financed his early career in the movie industry might have also contributed to the perception that Renoir fils (and/or
grandfils as the case may be) was something of a poseur. If that reaction to this particular Renoir probably didn't widely change for the
better until the release of films like La Grande Illusion
and The Rules of the Game, Toni,
which
appeared a few years before these two films, at least started to pave the way for a reappraisal of Renoir's talents. Toni is a remarkable
achievement by any standard, one of the first French films shot entirely on location at a time when the technologies of the day didn't really lend
themselves to such an audacious undertaking, and it is also ostensibly culled from a real life incident, making this a "ripped from the headlines"
affair
that has a number of socioeconomic substrata that in fact can seem positively prescient in terms of aspects that concerned the Italian Neorealists in
such films as Bicycle Thieves.
*An essay on Criterion's site also explicitly
discounts the involvement of Visconti on this particular film, though he later did collaborate with Renoir.
Toni is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. In lieu of an insert booklet, Criterion provides an accordion style foldout which contains the following information on the transfer:
Toni is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. This new 4K digital restoration was undertaken by Gaumont with the support of the CNC at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy, and Paris from the 35 mm original camera negative and a 35 mm fine grain positive from the Cinémathèque française.This is by and large a really stunning accounting of the film, one that preserves some great fine detail (look at the pattern on Toni's cap for just one example) while also offering a secure presentation of the film's really interesting cinematography. Blacks are superb for the most part and gray scale well modulated. There are some fluctuations to be noticed which I'm assuming stem from the difference in source elements, with a few interstitial sequences looking a bit blanched and less precisely detailed. There are also a few moments where it seems evident that focus pulling wasn't all that it might have been, a perhaps understandable situation given the immense challenges of the location shoot with the technologies involved. Grain can fluctuate somewhat with the different sources, but generally resolves very well. My score is 4.25.
The original monaural soundtrack was remastered from a 35 mm nitrate optical soundtrack positive and restored by L'Immagine Ritrovata.
With an understanding that this was recorded live under sometimes challenging conditions and that the production obviously stems from a relatively early phase of the "talkie" era, with all that that implies in terms of technologies and fidelity, this is a really surprisingly full bodied sounding track. The film has quite a bit of music in it, some performed live on screen, and the playing and singing sound warm and inviting. Outdoor scenes offer surprisingly good mixing, all things considered, with dialogue rendered cleanly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
Toni hasn't really achieved the renown of some of Jean Renoir's better remembered films, but if you're a fan of either Grand Illusion or Rules of the Game, my hunch is you'll find a lot to captivate you here. Those with an interest in Marcel Pagnol's writing should also find this a curiously effective companion piece. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplementary package very enjoyable. Highly recommended.
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