Mona Lisa (Anchor Bay
U.S. Edition)
Picture: B-
Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B+
Mona
Lisa is perhaps one of my earlier reasons for liking the films
of Neil Jordan. Since then he has been
more of a hit or miss director, but my mind always goes back to Mona Lisa. I remember being up late one night when Mona Lisa came on the TV and I recall watching it for several
minutes with sheer curiosity. I
couldn’t quite make out exactly what was going on, yet I kept watching. It captivated me in an unusual way, which to
this day I cannot describe. All I know
is that upon revisiting this film I am still captured under its bizarre
spell. For some reason I also seem to
forget certain aspects of the film over time, which make it all the more
interesting when I do watch it again as I am getting to see the film in an
almost fresh way again.
Part of my love for this film dates back to my enjoyment
of pulp cinema in general. You
typically label a film of this nature under that of crime thriller/drama, but
it also has all the characteristics of a pulp film. You can almost feel the touches of Samuel Fuller here at times,
not to mention the film has an unusual pace allowing for us to be swayed into
the criminal underworld just as our main character (Bob Hoskins) is. His new job involves driving around a call
girl (Cathy Tyson) and he also gets in the way of a dangerous kingpin (Michael
Caine). Now the beauty of this film is
the attraction of opposites as we see a deep affection grow between Tyson’s
character and Hoskin’s character. They
begin their relationship in sheer desperation for one another than neither of
them fully realize. However, that
quickly turns into a more romantic attraction that plays out.
Anchor Bay has issued this film to DVD, which is the
second time that the film has been issued in the U.S. because Criterion also
issued the film a few years back. That
particular DVD is still in print and remains sought after. Anchor Bay also issued this film in the
U.K., but with some slight differences than here in the U.S., which
unfortunately play to our disadvantage.
The U.K. edition had tons of extras and on top of that a 5.1 Dolby mix
instead of the mono only option that is on this new release.
The film is presented in a 1.85 X 1 anamorphic widescreen
transfer, which is one benefit over the PAL U.K. disc, which somehow squeezed
the image a bit and threw off the framing.
This was also the case on the PAL edition of The Long Good Friday,
which has also been reissued by Anchor Bay and reviewed elsewhere on this site
with similar comparisons. This
particular print shows better color and definition because the Criterion print
was a bit hazy and less defined. To top
things off the Criterion was also non-anamorphic. Ouch. So this is probably
the best edition in terms of picture quality.
Audio is a bit of a real bummer considering the 5.1 Dolby
remix is far superior on the U.K. edition.
I’m really not sure why this was not done for the American release. The film certainly deserves more than mono,
especially to give more life to the title song Mona Lisa by Nat King Cole.
Grrr. So how bad is the mono
anyway? Well, it’s nothing to jump for
joy over by any stretch of the imagination.
It’s Closter phobic in nature with too much happening in one channel,
even if it’s 2.0 Mono. There is also a
slight bit of harshness that is evident because you need to turn the volume up
in order to hear the faint dialogue at times, but then when there is more
action it becomes a bit of a problem.
The 5.1 mix on that U.K. edition did not have this issue!
Finally, you might think that in order to appeal to
consumers that more extras would have been included, but no. The Criterion and The U.K. disc had
commentary and the U.K. edition went a few steps further with some other
terrific material, but here we are left empty handed. I suppose if you are a fan of the film and don’t want to pay the
$30 on the Criterion edition than so be it.
Just for the record the U.K. disc will play on regions 1-6 if you can
handle PAL format on your TV. So keep
that in mind!
- Nate Goss
