Identification of a Woman (Antonioni)

[martin]

I haven't seen the Mr Bongo-disc all the way through as I've already seen the film several times in the past. But I noticed that several sentences in the beginning are without subs. It's mostly brief sentences and I'm not sure if it affects the understanding of the film (probably not)? But it seems sloppy. I agree that the subs are rather large.

The image quality is exactly as good as the Italian disc. I can't see any differences. No extras, though! The disc is Region 0, PAL, 16:9, progressive, dvd-9, bitrate 7,14 Mb/s.

[ellipsis7]

The subs were better on the old BFI VHS - but the Mr Bongo ones are OK to be going on with, if a little less than perfect...

(BTW Just found MA's GENTE DEL PO on Youtube and downloaded to DVD!)...

[zone_resident]

Beaver review of the Mr. Bongo Films release

[Barmy]

I haven't watched my Italian disc in awhile, but those DVD Beaver caps of the UK DVD are not at all representative of the rich colors of the 35mm print. Looks awful.

[ellipsis7]

I haven't watched my Italian disc in awhile, but those DVD Beaver caps of the UK DVD are not at all representative of the rich colors of the 35mm print. Looks awful.

I'm looking at production stills, in the published Italian script of IDENTIFICAZIONE and 'Les Images d'Antonioni' ed. Carlo di Carlo, and while they are bit more colour saturated, slightly less blue and a little more contrasted than the Mr Bongo print & transfer, the picture however lies in the same general area...

[pro-bassoonist]

I haven't watched my Italian disc in awhile, but those DVD Beaver caps of the UK DVD are not at all representative of the rich colors of the 35mm print. Looks awful.

I still think Barmy that at the price this disc is going for plus the fact that it is progressive one shouldn't dismiss it.

[MichaelB]

It didn't strike me that the Mr Bongo disc looked that much different from the 35mm version, though it's admittedly 14 years since I last saw the film in a cinema.

But it certainly doesn't look "awful" - in fact, it's a very pleasant surprise for this label. (Their Cronaca di un amore unarguably does look awful!) As Pro-Bassoonist says, for that price it's an excellent deal.

It's nice to see the old tactic of selling an art movie as a sex movie is alive and well. I remember the L'Avventura trailer desperately playing up every mildly erotic scene in the film, and here we have a naughty cover shot and the fib that this was the very film which caused Channel 4's red triangle policy.

Back in 1992 I was involved with a theatrical reissue of Belle de Jour that unapologetically sold it as "the Rolls-Royce of sex films". Yes, it's a cringeworthy tagline, but my God it worked - it smashed the house record at both its screens. You just have to be careful that marketing like that doesn't put off a film's natural audience, but Bunuel and Antonioni are pretty safe on that score.

[ellipsis7]

Completely UNLIKE the new R2 disc of Identificazione di una Donna which pulsates and quavers in color/visual quality in completely vomitous fashion. .

Thanks, I will avoid it.

Sorry to have disagree guys - I have OBERWALD on tape, and the new IDENTIFICAZIONE on DVD, as well as the old BFI VHS - and while there are several minor quibbles with the new DVD (a litttle too much blue, and maybe needs a notch more colour saturation and contrast), I'm not getting colour strobing/pulsating of any sort, nor anything resembling the deliberate colourisation of OBERWALD... Maybe there's a disc fault on your copy, David...

The jury's also out on Blu-Ray for me - I hitched up my sons' PS3 to my HD projector the other day and span a Blu-Ray of CASINIO ROYALE they had - no really significant improvement over the excellent picture quality I'm getting off good SDVDs like CC discs.... If the info's there, the system will find it...

[MichaelB]

and while there are several minor quibbles with the new DVD (a litttle too much blue, and maybe needs a notch more colour saturation and contrast), I'm not getting colour strobing/pulsating of any sort

I didn't either, though I do recall the 35mm print I saw many moons ago being on the bluish side.

David, do you have a specific example? I can dig out my review copy tonight to see if I can spot the same thing.

[chops]

I've just seen the Mr Bongo DVD release of 'Identification..' - I was just wondering whether anyone else had noticed a lot of background noise on the soundtrack throughout most of the film, which sounds a bit like a constant drone. It doesn't sound like it's meant to be there, perhaps it has been introduced with a poor copying of the audio track.. I haven't seen another version so I don't know if it is only on the Mr Bongo DVD. I found it really off-putting. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Tommaso]

Yes, I think it starts in the middle of the film when the two of them get stuck in the fog, then continues for 20 minutes or so, then disappears for a while, and finally returns again a little quieter. I'm pretty sure it is due to some mistake happening while transferring the film elements to the telecine. I also found it pretty annoying, and I wonder why no single reviewer out there has pointed it out. Even at the cheap price of the disc, it's unacceptable. I wonder whether it's also on the Italian disc of the film?

[martin]

I wonder whether it's also on the Italian disc of the film?

The Italin disc seems to have exactly the same fault on its audiotrack. The Italian disc has two audio options (5.1 & 2.0) but both tracks have the same problem. I suspect the fault comes from the source print or from an earlier stage in the sound mixing process?

I didn't find it too annoying as there is already a lot of ambient background noise in most scenes ('city noises' etc.).

[Aletheia]

I watched the Mr Bongo release last night. I too noticed the moiring and strobing, specifically when a vivid red colour appeared on screen. I think you can see this in the dvd beaver screen shots. Look at the collar in the sixth image.

Is this a defect on all discs? Or are some of the people who own the Bongo release immune from this fault.