Polish Cinema on Disc

[MichaelB]

Now this is intriguing - Jerzy Kawalerowicz' Night Train and Austeria and Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds are just about to come out on Blu-ray! With, as far as I can see, English subtitles.

Night Train in particular has got to be better than the murky Best Film Co/Polart version, so I might investigate further.

UPDATE: Just pre-ordered all three, plus Blu-rays of more recent films (Rewers, Dom zły and Enen) - I'll report back when they arrive.

[perkizitore]

Merlin sells them cheaper.

[MichaelB]

They may well do, but the site I linked to offers much more in the way of concrete information - not least about subtitles.

Merlin's still my preferred retailer, but it's one of the weaker Polish sites when it comes to offering reliable information, and if anything it's getting worse.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Greetings from Katowice where unfortunately the local Empik only has the barest number of the Pwa Nia titles but picked up Losinski fils and experimental animation. Unfortunately no sign of the Satisfaction: Consumption and Corruption set and not on their radar even. Will try in Warsaw tomorrow. Did get Stery noce z Anna by Skolimowski and it looks like a fine transfer and good subtitles (as Michael noted elsewhere) by the Missus.

It looks like from the blu-ray listings Michael that Matka Joanna and Sanitorium are also forthcoming on blu!

[MichaelB]

I haven't seen any sign of Satisfaction being made available anywhere yet. But you're right about Four Nights With Anna - it's completely barebones, but the presentation of the main feature is absolutely fine. And even if it hadn't been barebones, the extras would probably have been in Polish only, so it's no great loss.

The Blu-ray listings mention trailers for Mother Joan of the Angels and The Hourglass Sanatorium, so it's a reasonable guess - I know both have been restored recently, and the DVD of Mother Joan in the Best Film Co box is markedly better than Second Run's edition.

[perkizitore]

Did anyone receive their blu-rays or should we blame Eyjafjallajökull?

[MichaelB]

Mine should arrive tomorrow - the delay was caused by Austeria getting pushed back to the 22nd.

In fact, I've just checked the UPS tracking, and the package is only a few miles away as of ten minutes ago, so there's an outside chance I might even get it today.

[MichaelB]

OK, I've had a quick spin through the Blu-rays of Ashes and Diamonds, Austeria and Night Train, with some trepidation as they were all blind buys from an unfamiliar label...

...but you can colour me very impressed.

All three films have clearly been extensively and expensively restored. Austeria in particular (the only colour film) looks brand new, I've never seen Ashes and Diamonds looking so clean, and Night Train is such an improvement on the muddy, contrasty Polart and Best Film Co. DVDs that it's like watching a different film. I immediately turned to the most problematic scene on the DVD, where the passengers swarm off the temporarily stalled train and it's almost impossible to make out anything happening below the horizon as it's swallowed up in the murk. While it's still dark on the Blu-ray, it's now perfectly clear what's going on, and I have no doubt that this absolutely reflects the original intentions.

The three discs offer identical comparatively barebones packages - though menus and subtitles are available in Polish and English. In addition, the subtitles have four different viewing options based on size and colour - you can either have them small and within the frame, or large, and spilling out into the main 16:9 frame, and a choice of white or yellow. Aspect ratios are 4:3 for Night Train and 1.66:1 for the others - I assume these are correct.

Each disc has a show-off restoration demo (wordlessly wiping from crap DVD to flawless Blu-ray and back), and a set of five trailers - including Mother Joan of the Angels and The Hourglass Sanatorium. Everything is in HD, suggesting Blu-rays of those two titles are imminent. The only slightly niggling issue is that the trailer for The Hourglass Sanatorium is in 1.85:1 instead of the correct 2.35:1 - but it's not unusual for trailers to be in different aspect ratios from the main feature, especially as 2.35:1 is comparatively unusual for a Polish film, and presumably projectionists didn't want to stick an anamorphic lens on just for a trailer. Anyway, aspect ratio aside, this looks absolutely gorgeous (the colours look markedly more vivid than the allegedly new print that I saw in 35mm not too long ago), and I'll be blind-buying for certain.

I can't confirm this myself as I don't know how to check regions on a PS3 (or whether it's possible), but the back of each box claims that the discs are region-free. The only serious negatives so far are the covers, which are uniformly hideous.

[menthymenthy]

The only serious negatives so far are the covers, which are uniformly hideous.

It appears a lot of work went into creating those covers, and I don't dislike them at all; Popiol i Diamont is an improvement over the Best Film at least. They're a bit... modern, maybe. :-k

Glad to hear about the transfers. I haven't turned to Blu Ray yet, but when I do: A lot of these will be mine.

[What A Disgrace]

I might have to go for some of these...chances of Night Train or Mother Joan getting a Blu-ray release across the ocean are probably rather small.

[perkizitore]

Has anyone used this site before? It's the most English friendly Polish site I've seen (not that ordering from Merlin was difficult).

[MichaelB]

I've just watched the whole of the Austeria Blu-ray, and don't really have much to add to what I've already said: 95% of it looks wet from the lab, and the few shots with technical issues are usually to do with very very minor colour/exposure shifts whose impact is pretty negligible. The many close-ups of Franciszek Pieczka's face are particularly effective - every pore on his skin and hair on his substantial beard is precisely delineated.

I honestly can't see how a 28-year-old film can look any better than this.

[L.A.]

http://www.pro-motion.com.pl/index.php? ... =1:kontakt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[MichaelB]

Thanks for that - I'd heard rumours that they were prepping 20 Polish classics, but I had no idea that they'd be quite so imminent.

For those who can't read Polish, this is what they're releasing:

Second Quarter 2010

Salto (d. Tadeusz Konwicki, 1965)
The Hourglass Sanatorium (Sanatorium pod klepsydrą, d. Wojciech J. Has, 1973)
Kogel-Mogel (d. Roman Zaluski, 1988)
Kogel-Mogel II (Galimatias, czyli kogel-mogel II, d. Roman Zaluski, 1989)
Va Banque (Vabank, d. Juliusz Machulski, 1981)
Va Banque II (Vabank II, czyli riposta, d. Juliusz Machulski, 1984)
Sex Mission (Seksmisja, d. Juliusz Machulski, 1984)

Third Quarter 2010

Knights of the Teutonic Order (Krzyżacy, d. Aleksander Ford, 1962)
The Saragossa Manuscript (Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie, d. Wojciech J. Has, 1965)
The Last Day of Summer (Ostatni dzień lata, d. Tadeusz Konwicki, 1958)
All Souls' Day (Zaduszki, d. Tadeusz Konwicki, 1961)
Panic on a Train (Ludzie z Pociągu, d. Kazimierz Kutz, 1961)
The Great Shark (Wielki Szu, d. Sylwester Checiński, 1982)
Eroica (d. Andrzej Munk, 1958)
No-one Cries Out (Nikt nie woła, d. Kazimierz Kutz, 1960)
Nights and Days (Noce i dnie (d. Jerzy Antczak, 1975) - not clear whether this is the full TV series or the feature-film spin-off
Pharoah (Faraon, d. Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1965)
Goodbye Till Tomorrow (Do widzenia, do jutra, d. Janusz Morgenstern, 1960)
The Doll (Lalka, d. Wojciech J. Has, 1969)

This certainly explains why Second Run postponed its Eroica release! It's an incredibly exciting line-up, because many of these titles are unavailable on DVD, and many of the rest have had less than wonderful editions (most notoriously, Knights of the Teutonic Order). It also suggests why the Wojciech Has DVD releases dried up in Poland after only getting as far as 1962.

Interestingly, Mother Joan of the Angels isn't on that list, despite the HD trailer being featured on all the Blu-rays released to date.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I've never seen The Hourglass Sanatorium but have wanted to. How is it?

[jsteffe]

I've never seen The Hourglass Sanatorium but have wanted to. How is it?

I think it's beautiful--a rich, overtly surrealistic attempt to capture the feel of Bruno Schulz's stories onscreen. (Schulz is one of my favorite writers, period.) I think its one flaw is that the often bleak color scheme seems like a post-Holocaust lens on the stories. It's a legitimate approach, but it doesn't reflect enough of the stories' sensuality--by which I mean sensuality in the broadest sense. There's no question in my mind that it's a key work of Polish cinema and worthy of a blind purchase.

Edit: I also think it's a film that would greatly benefit from Blu-ray, and with any luck it will be transferred in its proper 'scope format rather than flat 1.85:1 (like the Mr. Bongo DVD).

[jsteffe]

MichaelB, thank you very much for that forthcoming list! I would LOVE to see a subtitled Blu-ray of Kawalerowicz's PHARAOH.

[What A Disgrace]

The only thing bad about that Blu-ray lineup is that that when Second Run releases their DVDs of these films, I won't be able to justify a purchase.

[Zinoviev]

Any plans for a new edition of Kawalerowicz's Death of the President (Smierc Prezydenta)? The Facets disc is, predictably, terrible -- dirty picture with pops and cracks and awful, erratic subtitles.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Edit: I also think it's a film that would greatly benefit from Blu-ray, and with any luck it will be transferred in its proper 'scope format rather than flat 1.85:1 (like the Mr. Bongo DVD).

Do you know why the aspect ratio on the Bongo DVD is incorrect?

[MichaelB]

Edit: I also think it's a film that would greatly benefit from Blu-ray, and with any luck it will be transferred in its proper 'scope format rather than flat 1.85:1 (like the Mr. Bongo DVD).

Do you know why the aspect ratio on the Bongo DVD is incorrect?

I suspect they used the same Polish-sourced master that was used for the French Malavida DVD, which is also 1.85:1. Until very recently, Polish masters were notorious for poor visual quality and cropping original aspect ratios - Second Run's Passenger and Knights of the Teutonic Order being cases in point. (Second Run were well aware of the problems, but at the time they had no alternative source so it was those masters or nothing).

But the stunning quality of the first batch of Pro-Motion Blu-rays makes me much more optimistic about these upcoming ones - even the trailer for The Hourglass Sanatorium makes it clear that it will benefit massively from a high-def upgrade.

I'm in Poland all next week, so I'll see if I can glean any more info. The handy thing about Polish film festivals is that you tend to bump into the same people repeatedly, and Polish cinema is a pretty small world.

[Stefan Andersson]

Hi MichaelB, Noce i dnie began as a TV series if I understand you right. Was the TV material blown up to 70mm? According to some online English-language info I found some years ago, the TV and movie material was filmed back to back. Might affect the DVD framing.

Popioly: found info in a Swedish 60s film mag that it originally ran 7 hours.

Jerzy Hoffman´s Sienkiewicz trilogy: any signs of remasters in proper 2.35? Including the TV version of With Fire and Sword...

[eltopo]

"Krzyzacy" (1960) Aleksander Ford - digitaly restored in 2,35:1!

[MichaelB]

Glad to hear it - the shocking state of the old master was a major embarrassment. I really felt for Second Run when they realised that that was all that was on offer at the time, and that was even before the BBFC got the scissors out.

[L.A.]

Wonderful news! Thanks for that, eltopo!