Vitus
(DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: B-
Fredi M.
Murer’s Vitus (2006) is a film I
have been trying to catch up with for a while, in part due to its critical
acclaim and also because I was hoping it could do something different with the
child prodigy storyline. Though it is
not something groundbreaking and had no major surprises, the character
development and generally good pacing from the screenplay and good performances
from everyone makes it a solid entry into what we could now consider a cycle of
such films.
First
time actor Teo Cheorghiu is very good as the teen who becomes instantly
enamored with keyboards (played at age 6 for a while by Fabrizio Borsani) and
grows into a teen struggling with whether he wants this to be his destiny or
not. Bruno Ganz is a standout as his
grandfather whose wisdom is a key guide in his life when no one else seems to
know anything.
Besides
some predictability, I wanted more on the music and the title character’s love
for it, as well as more about his connection to the world. The development of said protagonist does not
go far enough. To compare to my favorite
underrated film in the same mode, try John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka from back in 1988.
It is still about in the same league and highly recommended.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is soft, which is odd for a new film and
it has to do with more than the majority of the film taking place in the
past. Maybe Pio Corradi’s cinematography
and the Susanne Jauch production design is just so lush that DVD has a problem
capturing it all. Blu-ray will tell us
for certain when Sony issues this in that format. The Dolby Digital 5.1 fares better, showing
off the Classical Music to good effect and dialogue recording is not bad. Extras include Murer’s (who made a film with
H.R. Giger in 1968 called Swiss Made)
audio commentary, Cheorghiu’s screenplay, making of featurette and on cameras
interview with Ganz.
- Nicholas Sheffo
