Signs of Life
Picture: B
Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B
Fans of German director Werner Herzog have ranked Signs of Life, his debut film from
1968, as one of his best. It usually is
up there next to Aguirre: The Wrath of
God or Fitzcarraldo, which are
probably the two films that put him into the upper tier of modern
filmmakers. There seems to be a common
theme that Herzog loves to delve into and that is the idea that even the most
normal people, when put into an unusual situation, can then become
dysfunctional or even go mad.
As the case with Signs
of Life, we are introduced to a man and his new wife, he being an injured
soldier is relocated as a caretaker to an ammunition dump that has been
abandoned. The location is remote and
isolated with some locates that eventually wear on the nerves of our main
character, Stroszek, and along with the heat and other irritating factors, goes
mad. Some may even say that Herzog
himself became mad on sets when put in similar situations. See Burden
of Dreams or My Best Fiend for
details.
For a debut film this is fairly impressive work and dates
well, but will mostly appeal to fans of Herzog already or people that prefer
Ingmar Bergman paced filmmaking. One
thing that is for sure is that New Yorker’s release of the film is actually one
of their best to date. The 1.33 X 1
black and white image really holds up well and looks clean and free of debris
and dust. Grayscale is impressive with
deep blacks, solid whites, and an abundance of good contrast that shows off the
work of cinematographer Thomas Mauch.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 is just fine; most U.S. viewers will likely be
reading the subtitles anyway, which are very good. Nice fat white text with a black outline makes for easy reading
and makes the film work for non-German speaking viewers.
Add to a good transfer, New Yorker also includes a
commentary track with Norman Hill interviewing and posing questions for Herzog
and turns out to be very interesting and one of the better commentary tracks in
recent memory. I’ve listened to Herzog
on some of his other films and they are not nearly as interesting or as
in-depth as this. Also included are the
theatrical trailer and other New Yorker DVD trailers.
Highly recommended DVD edition from New Yorker based on
the assumption that you have seen other Herzog films and are aware of what his
films are like prior. This might not be
the easiest starting point for someone has never heard of Rainer Werner
Fassbinder or considers themselves a fan of Foreign films because they’ve seen Life is Beautiful and Amelie. We certainly hope that New Yorker uses this as a new benchmark
for quality and we look forward to future releases that maintain a high level
of excellence.
- Nate Goss
