6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others -- risking his sanity all the while.
Starring: Jack Plotnick, Alexis Dziena, William Fichtner, Eric Judor, Steve LittleDark humor | 100% |
Mystery | 40% |
Drama | 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, 16-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy (as download)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
It might seem hard to follow up Rubber, a film-within-a-film about a killer tire with telekinetic powers, but if anyone could do it, it would be French writer/director Quentin Dupieux. Unlike his earlier feature, which consciously mocked the conventions of cinema, Dupieux's Wrong at least pretends to follow a traditional plot with a beginning, middle and end. It's almost as if Dupieux were responding to his critics: "See? I can do it too!" Of course, he does it his way. Viewers expecting a conventional story will still be frustrated, because Dupieux remains a provocateur, delighting in incongruous characters and events that arrive not just from left field but from another dimension. Most tellers of tales at least try for verisimilitude. Dupieux goes for the opposite—the stranger, the better.
Dupieux photographs his own films. While Rubber was shot with a standard Canon digital camera, Wrong was photographed with a prototype model that Dupieux built himself with the help of a friend. (In pictures, it is labeled "HD-KOI", but no camera by that name is currently offered for sale or rental.) Whatever the camera's specs, it overcame the source-based limitations noted in Casey Broadwater's review of Rubber. Artifacts such as aliasing and moiré shimmer are wholly absent. The image on the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from Image Entertainment and Drafthouse Films is truly stunning. It provides superb clarity and detail without any of the harsh edges or textures from which digital capture sometimes suffers. The blacks are solid, and the contrast is excellent without being overstated, even in bright sunlight (a particularly important element in rendering the desert scenes of Mike's driving "quest"). The color reproduction is beautifully delicate, given the obviously careful composition and production design; colors are realistic, but just slightly intensified, so that otherwise ordinary scenes become eye-catching. (Dupieux clearly wants his films to be visually arresting, even when he photographs something ordinary.) Note, for example, the finely coordinated beiges and pastels inside Dolph's tastefully appointed home—a truly absurdist touch, given that it's the residence of a single man who obviously wouldn't invest the effort to deal with such matters. Dupieux's camera even picks up variations in the shade of blue applied to the two vehicles that receive rush paint jobs during the course of the film. (Don't ask.) None of the typical digital artifacts, such as banding, presented themselves, or if they did, I was too distracted by the nutty plot to notice. With its exceptional average bitrate of 35.00 Mbps, Wrong presented no issues with compression.
Wrong's soundtrack is provided in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1, and it's a solid, effective presentation. Sound cues are as significant as everything else in the film, and they're frequently serious when you think they're satirical. For example, when Dolph first rises on the morning when he'll discover that his dog is missing, a portentous music cue is heard several times, as if Dupieux were parodying a suspense film. But as it turns out, something is dreadfully wrong. It's not a parody; it's the genuine article. As in Rubber, the soundtrack doesn't attempt to create an immersive soundfield or place elaborate effects all around. The dialogue is clearly rendered, and the musical score, credited to Tahiti Boy and Mr. Oizo (the latter being Dupieux's stage name when he performs as a musician) has a gently pleasing sound.
Wrong is the kind of film that needs to be seen more than once. It creates its own world and establishes its own internal logic that eventually sweeps up the viewer, just like any work of fantasy. It reminds me of cult classics by directors like Robert Downey, Sr. or John Waters that, in the days before home video, would attract repeat viewers to the same theaters week after week, often at midnight showings where both patrons and staff were punchy from lack of sleep (and other things), and fans acknowledged each other by quoting lines or referencing plot points. The appeal of such works has always been their refusal to respect anything remotely resembling convention, but somehow they manage to create a film that works on its own terms. Individual mileage may vary, but for my taste Wrong is one of those. Highly recommended, with a big warning label.
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