August
By August
(Zappa
(1983) and Twist
& Shout
(1984)/Altered Innocence Blu-ray*)/Badland
(2007/Cleopatra Blu-ray*)/The
Goat
(2024/Cleopatra DVD*)/La
Tete Contre Les Murs
(1959 aka Head
Against The Wall/Radiance
Blu-ray/*all MVD)/The
Most Precious Of Cargoes
(2024/Icarus DVD)/A
Yard Of Jackals
(2024/IndiePix Blu-ray)
Picture:
B/B/C/C/B/B Sound: C+ & B-/B/C+/C+/C+/B Extras:
C+/C+/C-/C-/C+/B- Films: B-/C/C/B-/B-/B-
Now
for a serious round of dramas....
August
By August
(a double feature of Zappa
(1983) and Twist
& Shout
(1984)) are two early films by Director Billie August, two coming of
age films that are connected to the same world, the first about a
group of young boys who are up to no good, continue to get worse and
no matter what others do around them to help or show them a better
way, get even worse, slowly but surely until
some things happen that are not reversible.
Bjorn
(Adam Tonsberg) survived enough to be the lead character in the
second film as he gets sucked-up into the new era of Rock Music as
The Beatles arrive worldwide and the impact is undeniable, including
forming a band of his own that plays their songs, even their covers
like the title of the second film. Can he get his band to be as
successful or will they be just another of thousands of imitators
with little to no hits and what will he do with his life as adulthood
slowly arrives?
August
is still making films as this posts and right after Twist
& Shout with the
international hit Pelle
The Conqueror, The
Best Intentions (with its
Ingmar Bergman screenplay,) a mixed success with House
Of The Spirits and the
extremely underrated Smilla's
Sense Of Snow. These
coming of age films are up there with the better ones and even some
of the best, so I would definitely recommend this double feature and
add that we don't see these kinds of films like we used to. Cinema
just can not seem to deal with childhood and growing up like it used
to.
Extras
include
a new Interview with Director Bille August
Francesco
Lucente's
Badland
(2007) is the long look at a man and Iraq war veteran (Jamie Draven)
who kills his all of his family (Vinessa Shaw plays his wife) except
his 8-year-old daughter, then goes on the run. Instead of a story
about how this man needs to go to jail and then some, it decides to
deal with his PTSD and can he be saved because he is somehow not
guilty of murder? Joe Morton is a cop who might be able to help him
and he gets a new female interest played by Chandra West.
Well,
there are those who will try to deal with the story in front of them,
but I had too much difficulty in how this deals with a man killing
some of his own family. No wonder this was not a film that met with
much success of any kind. There must be ways to deal with this
subject matter, but this film with its 'doublethink' script is not
it. Saddest of all is that this has a good cast and some good
moments. If it could have resolved its issues in a way that was not
outrageous like it is here, this could have been at least a good
film. Oh well.
Extras
include a CD soundtrack, whiel the Blu-ray disc adds a Behind The
Scenes featurette, Deleted Scenes and a feature length audio
commentary track by Director Lucente and cinematographer/Director of
Photography Carlo Varini, A.F.C.
Ilaria
Borrelli's The
Goat
(2024) is a political film that has a surreal side as a 12-year-old
gal forced into a sick, arranged marriage, runs away with her title
pet. Somehow, her mother speaks through it and not as bad as it
sounds, also tackles a factory nearby exploiting the people of the
land as well. Mira Sorvino and a little-seen John Savage also show
up in the cast with some moments that work, but the script tries to
make the big statement about things denatured, things not left alone
and the horrid plight of forced child marriages that are worse than
ever before.
Unfortunately,
ambitious and sincere as it all is, the makers are not able to juggle
all of this and should have just stuck with one thing to deal with,
preferably the forced marriages. Instead, things get all mixed-up
and the intents tend to drag on each other. At least they were
ambitious and tried.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer and a Slide Show are the only extras.
Georges
Franju's La
Tete Contre Les Murs
(1959 aka Head
Against The Wall)
is the film he made before his biggest hit, Eyes
Without A Face,
Jean-Pierre
Mocky plays a young man who keeps getting into trouble, but he gets
too wild for his father. You could say his father goes off the deep
end a bit by having him committed to an insane asylum, which has its
own issues and problems (guess the French Foreign Legion was not an
idea) though his son may not actually be mentally ill.
The
idea is not just to ask about what sanity is, but what is neglect,
parental responsibility and individual responsibility, as well as
issues around trying to 'correct' or control the behavior of others.
The film does a decent job of dealing with this for its time,
including having two opposing doctors at the institute with two
different approaches.
Music legend Charles Aznavour
plays one of the patients and
Anouk Aimee
also stars.
Based
on Herve Bazin's autobiography, much of it is very believable and
Franju
makes it as palpable as his best films, so it is worth a thorough
look and its nice to see it getting this deluxe treatment.
Extras
include a 4K restoration by Eclair Classics supervised by Mocky
Delicious Products
Archival
interview with screenwriter and star Jean-Pierre Mocky (2008, 10
minutes)
Archival
interview with director Georges Franju and actor Charles Aznavour
(1958)
Interview
with Jean-Pierre Mocky's assistant and friend Eric Le Roy (2023, 25
minutes)
Archival
trailer
and
a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters.
Michel
Hazanavicius'
The
Most Precious Of Cargoes
(2024) is the live-action director's animated feature about people in
the middle of nowhere trying to survive the Nazis and their Holocaust
plans in a shift from the normal comedies the director is known for
(the O.S.S.
spy spoofs, zombie comedy Final
Cut
and Best Picture Oscar winner The
Artist)
and it works well enough.
Having no less than Jean-Louis Trintignant doing the narration is
another plus.
Darkly
beautiful and sad, it runs a tight 81 minutes and is the kind of
truly mature, adult animation we are seeing less and less of these
days, so this was a very welcome release. Dominique Blanc leads the
voice artists and the result is a work worth a look. It certainly
deserves a larger audience than it has received so far.
Trailers
for three other Icarus/Distrib releases are the only extras.
Diego
Figuerosa's A
Yard Of Jackals
(2024) takes place in 1975 as a very isolated, disabled architect is
under the duress of a fascist Chilean government who is slowly
destroying everything around him, so when strange new neighbors move
it, he thinks they are likely connected to the regime. A man in dark
glasses also shows up, making things worse. What will he do?
Some
very serious subject matter handled very well, it is often from the
point of view of our architect who also can build models of buildings
and even small people, which become motifs throughout the film, a set
of images of self-expression that equal progress versus the total
opposite of what is really going on. The result is successful enough
and more people should and deserves to see this sometimes even
remarkable work. We've seen some of this before, but it never gets,
in part because the behavior shown is more prominent than ever. Hope
it finds a larger audience.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer, Behind The Scenes featurette
and Picture-In-Picture video commentary by Director Figuerosa and
filmmaker Inti Carrizo-Ortiz.
Now
for playback performance. All the Blu-rays look pretty good here,
including the 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image on both
August
films look good with good color and few flaws, well shot, composed
and edited throughout. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes on both films are
fine, though Zappa
sounds a little weaker and a little older despite the slight age
difference between productions.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Badland
show the age of the materials used, but this is more consistent than
expected for an older independent production, while the sound is here
in DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes. The 5.1 is
slightly better and holds up very well too.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on La
Tete Contre Les Murs
can
sometimes show the age of the materials used, but this also looks
really good throughout and is worthy of Criterion's release of the
director's Eyes
Without A Face.
The PCM
1.0 Mono sound should have been 2.0 Mono, so it can be uneven and
music can be louder than dialogue in ways it should not be.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on A
Yard Of Jackals looks
good for its age as it should, also offering DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 and 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes. The 5.1 mix is a little better
here too.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on The Goat is softer
than I would have liked, but you can see there are still good shots
here, while the multi-lingual, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound
fares a little better.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Most Precious Of Cargoes
is also a little softer than it should be, even for the format and
especially with the animation as presented, but the lossy French
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo again fares a little better than the image.
We expect a Blu-ray edition is inevitable if not a 4K disc.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
