7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Set amid a soot-choked Pennsylvania landscape, and shot in an intensely intimate vérité style, the film takes up with distant and soft-spoken Wanda, who has left her husband, lost custody of her children, and now finds herself alone, drifting between dingy bars and motels, and callously mistreated by a series of men—including a bank robber who ropes her into his next criminal scheme.
Starring: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins (I)Drama | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Barbara Loden's "Wanda" (1970) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include a remastered vintage trailer for the film; an archival episode of The Dick Cavett Show with the director; an archival documentary produced by Katja Raganelli and Konrad Wickler; and more. The release also arrives with an illustrated leaflet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin and technical credits. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Reigon-A "locked".
Wanda
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1008p transfer, Barbara Loden's Wanda arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the leaflet that is provided with this Blu-ray release:
"This restoration was undertaken by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by Gucci. In accordance with the film's original release in 35mm, the original 16mm color reversal A/B rolls were were optically blown up to 35mm color negative film at Cinetech in Valencia, California, and this negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a Northlight film scanner by Ascent Media in Santa Monica, California. The image was then digitally restored and remastered by Modern VideoFilm in Burbank, California. Additional restoration was performed by the Criterion Collection.
Restoration supervisor: Ross Lipman.
Colorist: Gregg Garvin/Modern VideoFilm, Burbank, CA.
Sound restoration: John Polito/Audio Mechanics, Burbank.
Sound transfers: Shawn Jones, NT Picture & Sound, Santa Monica, CA."
The cinematography utilizes light and colors in some rather unique ways, especially for a low-budget production from the '70s, that can produce different types of density fluctuations; highlights and shadow definition are also impacted. The 16mm to 35mm transition has further some of these fluctuations. As a result, when there are shifts in density it is usually quite easy to tell. On the other hand, despite the minor fluctuations and stylistic choices, depth and clarity remain very nice. (Of course, as it is usually the case with 16mm content, they do not have the fine delineation and nuances of those that native 35mm content would produce. See examples in screencaptures #6, 19, and 14). The primary colors are stable and healthy, plus there are equally nice ranges of strong and healthy nuances. Image stability is excellent. There are no large debris, cuts, stains, or damage marks, but early into the film I spotted a few nicks. Great restoration and presentation of the film. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 1.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.
The quality of the soundtrack immediately gives away the fact that Wanda was an independent project that was shot with limited funds. Indeed, it incorporates plenty of unfiltered organic sounds and noises and in some areas there are pretty obvious dynamic fluctuations. On the other hand, I am convinced that during the film's restoration some very specific stablizations and enhancements were made to improve balance because the lossless track does not have any abrupt spikes and drops that would frequently appear on unresotred aged content. In other words, expect a more flexible but organic soundtrack that was very nicely reproduced by the lossless track.
It would not be wrong to view Barbara Loden's Wanda as a slightly exotic piece of Americana that preserves some of the social flavor and rhythm of life that the '70s promoted. (A few of John Cassavetes' famous films from the same period can also be approached this way, but you would almost certainly miss the bulk of what makes them special. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is perhaps the lonely exception because like Wanda it is actually a chameleon of sorts that can also function as a time capsule). However, I think that Wanda becomes a lot more interesting if viewed as a unique psychological dissection of a woman's struggle to overcome the bad hand that life has dealt her, with the focus being on her supposed passivity and transformation into a 'drifter'. Criterion's upcoming Blu-ray release is sourced from a very nice 2K restoration of the film which emulates its original 35mm theatrical presentation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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