Tag Archives: Radiance Films

With Fame Comes Absurd EVIL Exploitation. “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Limited Edition Blu-ray of “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” Now Available!

To compete against a rival fashion magazine who found profound success after hiring a famous gymnast as their spokesmodel, an ambitious fashion company sees potential in amateur golfer Reiko Sakuraba with her beauty, grace, and a decent enough golf game.  The only problem is Reiko has not won a championship.  The fashion company representative and Reiko’s sport’s columnist writer/manager/boyfriend Miyake strike a deal to get intensely train and mentally exhaust Reiko to be the best by the next tournament.  When Reiko outperforms the tournament’s veteran players, she instantly becomes a fashion icon and celebrity that leads to her own show for the magazine, photoshoots, and a large house in the middle of the suburbs.  Miyake’s aloof behavior continues even after Reiko’s success and while he drives her back home, he hits-and-runs a woman form the neighborhood who blackmails and guilts Reiko into letting her into the rich and famous lifestyle.  Reiko’s mental health slowly declines as pressures mounts.

“A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is a tale of how the sudden rise of fame and fortune can quickly lead to world of hurt through inexperience, obsession, misguided love, abuse, and the day-to-day tasks that can even burden even the most common person.  The story also represents a dichotomy between fame and the mundane.  The 1977 Japanese surreal drama is helmed by Seijun Suzuki, a filmmaker once blacklisted by the head of Nikkatsu Studios after his film for the company, “Branded to Kill,” was deemed terrible by Nikkatsu execs, and rode the filmic bench for nearly a decade until his theatrical release of the Shochiku Ltd. Released production that allowed him the freedom for artistic expression.  Also concisely known as “A Tale of Sorrow,” the Suzuki picture is written by Atsushi Yamatoya based off manga by Ikki Kajiware and produced by Yoshiki Nomura, Kenzo Asada, and Tokuya Shimada.  

Yoko Shiraki steps into the tragic golf-cleated shoes of golfer-turned-spokesmodel Reiko Sakuraba who finds herself unknowingly being exploited as object of marketable objectification.  What’s interesting about Sakuraba is she’s totally alone amongst other adults in a real cutthroat and cruel way through her trajectory of success.  In the fashion world, the magazine representative behind the concept (Masumi Okada, “The Living Skeleton”) only wants her for her beauty and success, her boyfriend Miyake (Yoshio Harada, “Lady Snowblood 2:  Love Song of Vengeance”), and even an once starstruck housewife, Kayo Senba (Kyôko Enami, “Killer Whale”) who was struck by Miyake’s car and resents Reiko’s, blackmailing her way into the superstar golfer’s life by forcing her hand to relinquish all from her worldly possessions to her mind, body, and soul.  Shiraki gifts Sakuraba the fault of inability to say no with her innocence and naivety ravaged and exploited beyond the point of no return and beyond repair but Sakuraba clings to dear life, perhaps even sanity, because of tone person that too only reacts negatively around her but since their blood reaction is thicker in the watery connections manipulating her, Sakuraba’s hand is forced to do much all of the golfing and modeling hell for her adolescent younger brother Jun (Tetsu Mizuno), a smart yet reclusive boy with off screen aggression getting into fights with school bullies stemmed likely by his sister’s constant absence.  Sakuraba’s not only a slave to external obsessions of success, image, and greed but also a slave to internal obsessions with Mikyake who deprives her of the most basic primal needs for financial gain and for manipulative control.  Kôji Wada, Shûji Sano, Noboru Nakaya, sao Tamagawa, Tokie Hidari, and Jô Shishido co-star.

“A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is Seijun Suzuki’s tour de force return to feature films.  A linear narrative speckled with surrealistic doses creates an unsettling and bizarre atmosphere of strongarm manipulation on the unassertive character of Reiko Sakuraba.  Her raw talent is mined and minced without much consent and pushed past mental exhaustion and collapse in what is an all too true theme surrounding the early television era of celebrity branding with esteemed figures being puppets for large scale companies in order to sell their promoted products.  Money, image, and success steer the helm without any due remorse to the elegant centerpiece of the room, driving Suzuki’s social commentary to extreme levels of misappropriation of a human person with feelings and ambitions of their own.  Instead, Reiko’s meekness is measured by Suzuki’s fabricated milieu of mistreatment represented partly in a behavioralism of semi-surrealism – Miyake’s stoic aloofness, Senba’s brazen hijack of Reiko’s fame and wealth, and even Jun’s withdraw and reclusion are all good archetype of strange conducts illegitimizing Reiko as person.  She’s dehumanized so much so she stops whatever little rationality she had to begin with and becomes a vessel of command that allowed those around to walk all over her.  Suzuki’s suburban reach toward fame theme is satirical for “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness’s” thin blanketing of dark comedy and the filmmaker often accentuates the moments with elongated sequences, randomized bits of eccentricity, and highly stylized contrasts of sex and violence as well as commercially sensationalized imagery versus Stepford wives’ expectations.

A bleak absurdist dream, “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” becomes rightly a part of the Radiance obscure, high level lineup with a new, limited-edition high-definition transfer Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50 receives the high definition transfer from the Shochiku Corporation, who currently distributes a fair amount of Anime and since “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is adapted from a Ikki Kajiware’s Manga, the film fits right in, and is presented in by Radiance in the original aspect ratio of a widescreen 2.35:1.  Radiance’s image quality surpasses expectations as visually bold in a wide variety of contrasting colors, especially in primaries of yellow and reds juxtaposed against achromatic shades of brilliant whites and deep blacks.  The original print is beyond pristine with virtually no dust, dirt, scratches, or any kind of visual impediments in what appears to be a well-preserved 35mm reel.  Skin tones appear naturally organic and textures pop in their specific fabrics inside an overlay of natural stock grain for that bare-faced aesthetic of clear based film strip.  The Japanese uncompressed mono PCM audio, again, surpasses expectations with a diverse mix through a single output that creates excellent note individualism rather than an indistinct amalgam.  The omitted compression codec provides the original audio framework comfortably upholding against the test of time without a flurry of issues in the single layer.  Hissing, popping, crackling and other types of interference are kept either suppressed or to a bare minimal in another pristinely kept transfer.  ADR dialogue clearly affixes to the images with synchronous efforts being no worse compared to other films of the era out of Japan.  The newly improved English subtitles render without error, are compositionally more-or-less within syntax range of translation, and pace nicely throughout.  Special features include a new audio commentary by film historian and author Samm Deighan, a new interview with assistant editor Kunihiko Ukai, and the film’s trailer.  The clear Amaray case contains Sam Smith commissioned artwork on an obi-strip included reversible sleeve – primary cover composition is of a live still of exhausted Reiko Sakuraba lying next to a bunker with a spirally title font and the reverse cover is more NSFW with a partially nude Reiko with boyfriend Miyake portrayed in soft, dreamy glow.  The white and red disc is pressed with eye-pleasing contrast and the inserted 31-page color booklet provides cast and crew credits, essay “Sorrow, Sadness, and the Sweet Smell of Excess” by Radiance regular contributor Jasper Sharp, an archive essay “The Realisation of a Seijun Sizuki Film” by Atsushi Yamatoya, and the Blu-ray acknowledgements. “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” Radiance Blu-ray has a runtime of 93 minutes, is unrated, and since Radiance is a UK boutique label, collectors and film aficionados will get the best of both worlds with a region A and B playback.

Last Rites: Seijun Suzuki’s return to theatrical feature films with “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is a remarkable comeback for the ages and the decade interruption didn’t even cause a missed step for his artistic expression of exploitation and consumerism control ruining young, raw talent which is a clear-cut archetype of sorrow and sadness.

Limited Edition Blu-ray of “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” Now Available!

Three Million and Staying One Step Head of the Cops is EVIL’s Masterplan! “The Cat” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Cat” Limited-Edition Blu-ray From Radiance Films Now Available!

Two ex-cons hold up a Düsseldorf bank for 3 million German marks.  Armed with handguns and brazen with their daytime theft, the two men hold hostage a handful of alarmed employees, rounded up before the bank opens for business, including the bank manager.  Going into the heist with a money figure in mind, the vault is discovered with only 200,000 inside, but that was to be expected as the arrival of the police surround the building adjacent to the towering Nikko Hotel where a third man, the mastermind, spies down from one of the upper floors, instructing the two armed men inside of his plan as well as spying on the police activity aimed to thwart the robbery.  Always one step ahead, police, bank employees, and even the bank manager’s wife are all a part of the organized crime for the riches, and maybe even exact a little retaliation in the process too. 

The 1988 released, German crime-thriller “Die Katze,” or “The Cat,” is an intense ruse engrained with deception, affairs, and a saturated with emotional weight.  Helmed by directed Dominik Graf (“The Invincibles”) put the Munich-born, drama-comedy filmmaker to the test with the Christoph Fromm script, adapted from the 1984 novel Uwe Erichsen, entitled Das Leben Einer Katze, aka The Life of a Cat.  “The Cat” would be Graf and Fromm’s second feature together who, four years previously, collaborated on the slice of life for carefree, bike friends suddenly finding themselves in the unemployment lane of “Treffer” and who would then go to after “The Cat” with the gambling comedy “Spieler” two years later.  “The Cat” is a production of Bavaria Film and Zweites Deutsches Fernshehen and is produced by George Feil and Günter Rohrbach (“Das Boot”), shot on location at the Hotel Nikko in Düsseldorf as well as in studios in Munich.

“The Cat” contains a hierarchy amongst the thieves with Britz (Ralf Richter, “Das Boot,” “Sky Sharks”) being at the bottom as a hot-headed hired gun, Jungheim (Heinz Hoenig, “Das Boot,” “Antibodies”) is next step up as the managerial ex-con looking to score big with reprisal, untamed purpose, and, lastly, the only man who can keep Jungheim from spiraling out of control and the spying eye from the tower radioing orders is the mastermind behind the heist plan with a calm as a cucumber demeanor and a cool cat, or katze, finesse and his name is Probek (Götz George, “The Blood of Fu Manchu,” “Scene of the Crime: A Tooth for a Tooth “).  But, as we all know and as the old proverb goes, there is no honor amongst thieves, yet Graf’s filmic adaptation does instill some counterbalance against that adage by keeping a sliver of diligence within their circle but there is an underlining truth well-hidden under-the-table, only informing those down the ladder what they need to know, when they need to know.  As tension ebb and flow from each personality type, throw into the mix an equivocal loyal woman (Gudrun Landgrebe, “Rosinni”), an intelligent officer in charge of hostage operation (Joachim Kemmer, “The Vampire Happening”), and a stubborn and quick to catch-on bank manager (Ulrich Gebauer) and the ensembles ensues an edge of your seat volatility elevated by the steadfast performances with the actors unhinged and let loose to exact their roles.  With lots of moving pieces to the characters’ actions, supporting parts are key to the success, adding flavor to their persona types and unravelling more about who they are and how audiences are supposed to perceive them as either friend or foe.  Sbine Kaack, Heinrich Schafmeister, Claus-Dieter Reents, Iris Disse, Water Gontermann, Bernd Hoffman, Uli Krohm, and Klaus Maas co-star. 

Hardboiled in a game of pursuit and evasion, Dominik Graf finds without difficulty the essence of Uwe Erichsen’s thrilling crime novel staying mostly in one location, evolving the story as the police try every trick in the book to thwart who they believe to be ordinary bank robbers and as the confidence, and perhaps a little brazen cockiness, slowly builds self-assured success. This constant stream of checks and balances between the hard focused, unobservant antitheft division of Germany’s finest and the cooperative crooks consisting of brawns following instructions of the brain keeping ahead of a fate less fortunate never lets down, never idles, and never diverts attention. “The Cat,” in a way, feels very much like 1988’s “Die Hard” from director John McTiernan, a steady source of one-upping the good guys peppered with moments of unvarnished, graphic violence and dark, unforeseen levity, minus a lone wolf John McClane hero behind enemy lines. The very opening scenes of Götz George and Gudrun Landgrebe engaged sexually are raw, sensuous, and sweaty but are under top a jaunty soundtrack that mismatch the heat of the moment in its cheerful, breezy Eric Burden and the Animal’s tune “Good Times,” a track with lyrics that speak of regrets of negating better moments with unsavory choices finds more of a potent meaning at the gun blazing finale where facing death is an inevitable outcome for one’s poor decisions.

UK label Radiance Films releases “The Cat” in the North American market for the first time with English subtitles in a limited-edition Blu-ray with a Dominic Graf approved high-definition transfer, newly graded by Radiance Film, onto an AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50. While the heist concept may be familiar conceptually to “Die Hard,” the look of the film also has that natural grading of “Die Hard” as well with Radiance infused punctuations on skin tones with a natural hardness. The print used was a digitized file, likely already spruced from an extracted print used by Euro Video in 2017, but Radiance retains the organic grittiness as well as the grain in their own sprucing up that sees a muted hues appear more intense. Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, I’m curious to know if “Die Katze” was cropped in post to avoid nudity in the love scenes between George and Landgrebe that appear stretched with more pixelation and are oddly framed, as if portions were sliced off and positioning did not change. The German audio mixes include lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a stereo 2.0. The surround mix lets loose and gives way to all to all of “The Cat’s” range in securing side and rear channels with ambient police activity, fireball explosion crackling, and the echoing of cavernous settings juxtaposed against more intimate and cozy locations. Dialogue renders clear, robust, and prominent with a seemingly errorfree, newly translated English subtitle synchronicity albeit the pacing being a little rapid. No signs of compression issues nor any print damage or unpleasant hissing or crackling. Special features include new German-languaged, English subtitled interviews with Dominik Graf, screenwriter Christoph Fromm, and producer George Feil, a scene-select commentary with Graf, and the film’s trailer. Like the rest of Radiance’s catalogue, “The Cat” comes with a clear Amaray with an OBI strip overtop the reversible cover art. The reverse side displays the original home video and poster art. A 19-page color picture booklet features an essay by freelance culture writer and film critic Brandon Streussnig All the Good Times That’s Been Wasted, plus cast and crew credits and transfer information and acknowledgements. The region A/B encoded playback release has a runtime 118 minutes, is not rated, and is limited to only 3000 copies.

Last Rite: A masterful crime thriller, “The Cat” claws away the fuss to unsheathe realism and Radiance Films delivers the Germanic, harrowing heister in all its glory with a Hi-Def release.

“The Cat” Limited-Edition Blu-ray From Radiance Films Now Available!

EVIL Lies in Ancestral Ties! “Dogra Magra” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Dogra Magra” on Limited Edition Blu-ray! Purchase Here!

A young man wakes up in an asylum cell, unable to remember how he got there, his name, and doesn’t even recognize his face.  The asylum supervisor, Prof. Wakabayashi, has been overseeing his condition ever since the suicidal passing of former experimenting director, Dr. Masaki, nearly a month ago.  Disoriented, the young man is toured around the hospital grounds where Wakabayashi tells him the tragic tale of a 9th century man who kills his bride the day before their wedding day to capture the stages of her decomposition recorded onto a sacred scroll.  Distancing himself from the possibility of being murderous man, Wakabayashi informs him he is Kure Ichiro, the direct descendent of the groom and he enacted the very same events his ancestor committed long ago.  When the sudden reemergence of Dr. Masaki covertly corners Ichiro in his office, Masaki divulges his and Wakabayashi’s theories about Ichiro’s case but how the events came to fruition just may be plain and simple murder. 

Nature versus Nurture and the psychosis that ensues when discussing Pre-World War II context of Empirical Japan and their either inherent tendencies to repeat a violent past or to be triggered, poked, and prodded toward repeating history is the surmised and experimental plot of writer Yumeno Kyūsaku and his psychoanalytical novel “Dogura Magura.”  The title rearranged to “Dogra Mogra” is used for the film adaptation of Kyūsaku’s novel with the script written-and-directed by the avant-garde filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto (Japan’s “Demons” of 1971).  Matsumoto cowrites the script with Atsushi Yamatoya (“Story of David:  Hunting for Beautiful Girls”) written primarily from the distressed perspective of the protagonist Kure Ichiro only to switch hands when the experimenting Masaki enters the fold.  Shuji Shibata and Kazuo Shimizu inpendently produce the 1988 film under production companies Katsujindo Cinema and Toshykanky Kaihatsu AG.

Principal players of “Dogra Magra” boil down to a three-prong outfit centered around Kure Ichiro and his theorized amnesia.  Before being the lead voice actor in “Prince Mononoke,” a decade earlier Yôji Matsuda was waking up with an inexplicable unawareness of who he was or what he had done as Kure Ichiro.  Matsuda feigns forgetfulness with shock and surprise, that will too place audiences in situational darkness, with the young Ichiro arousing in a powerful moment of unfamiliarity.  A shaken, discombobulated Ichiro becomes the object of obsessional mark between two theoretical and experimental-competing psychoanalysts in Prof. Wakabayashi and Dr. Masaki, played respectively by a collectively calm and bearded Hideo Murota (“Rape and Death of a Housewife,” “Original Sin”) that emits a sense of academia and medical security and reason and a hyenic-laughing, bald and glasses-wearing Eri Misawa who is more maniacal and unconventional to the likes of a mad-scientist   Yet both men have motivation that stirs the enigmatic pot of Kure Ichiro’s plight, stemmed from the very same source that drives the brutal murder of his beautiful bride one day before their wedding that eerily follows the footsteps of his macabre ancestral history.  There’s an inarguable difference between Wakabayashi and Masaki’s approach handling the curious case of Kure Ichiro; Wakabayashi’s hides in the clandestine shadows that aims to subvert the thought dead Masaki’s work whereas Masaki, under his blunt-force mania, is straight forward, almost apathetically.  In either case, both psychoanalytical professionals are indifferent to the crux of human life by focusing solely on whether either one of their theories is correct in an odd game of deception and death.  “Dogra Magra” rounds out the cast with Kyôko Enami (“Curse, Death & Spirit”) and Eri Misawa.

An attribute for audiences to become lost in “Dogra Magra’s” ethereal can be contributed by Toshio Matsumoto’s accosting avant-garde disorientation that swallows Kure Ichiro past, present, and future, plays tricks on his mind and eyes, and that also fishes patiently for a conclusion that rarely seems apparent.  The experimental qualities of “Dogra Magra” seep out of the tap of dark comedy and amnestic thriller and into a basin of spreading horror and exploitation.  “Dogra Magra’s” surreal storytelling and interesting, visceral visuals often reminds us of an old-dark house film a decade prior with the Nobuhiko Obayashi film, “Hausu,” and while not based in satirical foreplay like “Hausu,” “Dogra Magra” begins to unravel more questions than answers with a fleeting sense that nothing is real, nothing is as it seems, and maybe perhaps were all stuck in Kure Ichiro’s herded and scrambled mind that may or may not be his inherent, innate doing after all and that changes the narrative entirely.  Themes of historical repetition, ancestral culpability, forgetting the past, and empirical brainwashing are churned intrinsically into “Dogra Magra’s” constitution as well as within Japanese legacy with a formidable and prophetical proposition for no hope on horizon through a chimerical lens of learning and growing into the truth.

Radiance Films continues to starkly highlight underscored and wayward films from around the globe and “Dogra Magra” is no exception with a beautifully curated Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 features the original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 filmed by cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki.  The Radiance print for the limited-edition Blu-ray is pulled from the original 35mm elements and transferred in Hi-Def by producer Shuji Shibata and supervised by Tatsuo Suzuki.  The stunning upgrade leaves nothing to the imagination with a starkly harsh color grading that appears rawer than air or bright, leaning into grayscale more with darker tones of a greenish-yellow to accentuate the morbid, maybe even grittier, side of this tale, but often has naturally flourishing landscapes, such as the beach cove and the asylum yard that provides a good stretch of depth when not filtered through a POV celluloid handheld.  What’s a real winner here are the textural details that emerge through a blanket of consistent, healthy stock grain with dust and dirt retained to an extreme minimum.  The Japanese LPCM Mono mix disperse a sure-designed composition between natural audio elements layered upon or spliced with the incongruous tunes of one going through a hallucinogenic and dissociative state.  Dr. Masaki’s maniacal laughter has a sharp authoritarian jest that makes it even more frighteningly surreal.  Dialogue withholds that same sharpness and clarity throughout channeled through a single output, harnessing all the action into a funnel but clearly distinct.  English subtitles are optionally available.  The static menu’s special features store an achieved commentary track from late director Toshio Matsumoto, a 2003 interview with the director, programmer and curator Julian Ross’s visual essay on the cinematography Dogra Magra Through the Eyes of Tatsuo Suzuki, a featurette Instructions on Ahodara Sutra on the subject of the chant used in the story, a still gallery of production sketches, and the trailer.  A 51-page, color book weighs the Blu-ray package with contents that include a director’s statement from 1988, exclusive essays and an interview by Hirofumi Sakamoto Late-Period Toshio Matsumoto and Dogra Magra, Jasper Sharp The Pen is Mightier than the Sword:  The Life of Atsushi Yamatoya, and Alexander Fee and Karin Yamamoto Memory traces:  Interview with Producer Shuji Shibata, and rounding out with transfer credits and release acknowledgements.  The reversible sleeve is housed in a clear Blu-ray Amaray with new illustration compositional art and the original, more traditionally composed, Ukiyo-e artwork on the reverse.  Encoded only for regions A and B, Radiance Films’ limited-edition release to 3000 copies has a runtime of 109 minutes and is not rated. 

Last Rites: “Dogra Magra” psychosomatic surrealism is mind games on methamphetamines and Radiance Films does the 1988 Japanese picture justice rekindling its worth to the world of cinema.

“Dogra Magra” on Limited Edition Blu-ray! Purchase Here!

A Boy’s Imagination Can Conjure Up EVIL Death and Sex. “Viva La Muerte” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Viva la Muerte” Limited Edition Won’t Be Around Long. Grab Your Copy Here!

At the peak low of the Spanish Civil War, naïve adolescent boy Fando doesn’t understand what is happening between the Catholic-blessed fascist takeover of his country nor exactly why his father was arrested and what has since happened to him.  He stumbles upon letters written by his mother suggesting that she had something to do with his sudden arrest because of his parents’ rival principles paralleling their nation’s bloody conflict of dividing beliefs.  Fando asks his remaining family questions, especially pelting his mother with detailed inquiries, about his father, death, and the fascist opposition, and while he’s lives under the draconian rule of a fascism reality and his family who abides it closely, the inquisitive boy intersperses his new, complex reality with his own way of comprehending, filling in the blanks with his vivid imagination of childish macabre, oedipal maturing, and an uninhibited interpretation of the evolving revolution surrounding him.   

“Viva la Muerte,” aka “Long Live Death,” is the 1971 surrealistic war horror from then debut filmmaker Fernando Arrabal.  Arrabal, who went on to modest yet esteemed career with such arthouse films such as “I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse,” “Car Cemetery” and another Spanish Civil War set drama “L’arbre de Guernia,” also wrote the film that cemented his contributions to the surrealistic performance art movement known as the Panic Movement.  Though Arrabal was born in Spain and tells the story of the Spanish Civil War, the filmmaker had lived in France where the movement’s genesis began solely as street shock performances alongside fellow filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (“El Topo”) and writer/actor Roland Topor, the latter had penned the novel of inspiration for what would be Roman Polanski’s “The Tenant.”  Eventually, the Panic Movement slid into cinemas and the French production/language “Viva la Muerte” was designed to not only exhibit chaotic, childlike account of the Spanish Civil War but also shock audiences with bizarre imagery.  Isabelle Films and S.A.T.P.E.C. fund the film under the producing credits of Hassene Daldoul and Jean Velter.

What better way to express an arthouse film than with arthouse performances from a blend of European actors and actresses from the French and Spanish territories.  “Viva la Muerte” couriers a perception through the eyes of a preteen child, a young boy of approx. 10 years of age, in Fando played with infatuation innocence and a model of child-to-adult growth in Mahdi Chaouch.  Fando’s virtue through the Spanish Civil War becomes shaped by not only the sudden loss of his father but also the quick onset of maturity being left and lifted as the man of the house.  Fando slips into a mix of fantasy and disdain for his mother, played by Spanish actress Núria Espert, surrounded and shaped by a political conflict climate as he interprets every statement she makes regarding his father’s irresolute fate between imprisonment and execution and every desirably suggested aspect of her action that drives him to internally create visuals of sex and death.  In the effect of one’s different self is the subtle infusion of the aunt whom Fando lives with for a while, a role by French actress Anouk Ferjac (“Hallucinations sadiques”) and mirrors the mother in appearances and in the same taboo risking amorous ways that creates thick, nearly line-crossing, sexual tension between adult woman and male child, especially topped by its incestuous nature.  Unknowns Jazia Klibi, Jean-Louis Chassigneux, Suzanne Comte, and Ivan Henriques as Fando’s dissident father round out the cast with a sense of authenticity for real world conflict. 

Arrabal’s “Viva la Muerte” becomes a beaconing example of merging stern reality with liberal imagination.  Though starkly apposition in film styles and surreal contrasts against the backdrop of a new world and bleak order of a fascism regime, reality and fantasy do blend to a degree as Arrabal sought to have one and the other bleed into one another to evoke questions of motives and symbolize with child caricaturizing the authoritarian oppression.  The overtly sexual fantasies of a naked mother and aunt in the presence of the boy can be egregiously sensed outside the dreamlike context with paused moments of starring and awkward touching.  Same can be said about Fando’s father’s demise as the boy goes through an array of grotesquely creative possibilities regarding father’s fate with most often being death and while Fando is spoon-fed lesser punitive measures by his mother, the chances of the father being alive after being arrested are likely zero based off earlier graveside executions of military firing squads for those with strong ideology opposition.  Fando’s mother plays a hefty role in his deadly, warped thoughts and just not sexually either as her role in his colorfully constructed explanations pin her as the chief executioner after reading her letters to the church about his dissident behavior.  Catholicism, or rather the Church, plays a huge role in shaping young Fando’s personal arc.  Religious imagery of his mother as the virgin Mary, a priest blessing fascist swords before battle, and also the same priest having his manhood violently removed and fed to him represents a way to explain how Catholicism has essentially failed stand against the violence to which, later exhibited in the story, molds Fando as a trouble instigator or rebel in his Catholic nun run school for the Church’s complicity in his father’s death.  Fando’s rejection of the Church confirms his character’s growth from the story’s beginning of his extreme self-penancing and opposition to such aberrant thoughts; thoughts that are not just sexual in nature but also incline themselves to be dirty, literally, with skin-covering mud and scat in playful mirth to signify enjoyment equates to being sinful and filthy.  Arrabal really does give you lots to unravel and the panic really starts to set in, hence his Panic Movement.

Limited to 3000 copies, “Viva la Muerte” arrives to the U.S. on its first Blu-ray release here in the States from Radiance Films.  The beautiful, new 4K restoration scan, with the collaboration of director Fernando Arrabal, pulled from the best elements of the original 35mm negative, 35mm French sound negative, and 35mm interpositive negative fathoms a rich spectrum of a diffused color palette on the AVC encoded, dual layer, BD50, presented in a high-definition 1080p and in the original European aspect ratio of 1.66:1.  Reality scenes are grounded by natural lighting, brighter contrast of the mountainous desert landscape, and a thorough macro-examination of the details and textures that pop the imagery between the grandfather’s bloodletting scene on the shaved portion of his fibrous head to the wet-slick and soapy naked Fando as he stands to get scrubbed down in the bath.  Blacks are solid without signs of a weaker compression encoding.  The surreal imagery switches gears, harshly, from 35mm film to an interlaced videotape, changing and reducing the quality down significantly but with the tape image is heavily colored in mostly primary colors to denote an artful way of imaginary explanations in Fando’s head.  No other issues arise from the video portion, retaining Radiance Films’ attention to detail and respect intact for their culturally valuable and extensive catalogue.  The French language uncompressed LPCM 2.0 mono track fairs well from a virtually damage free preservation.  A slight background hiss or hum can be found as the only audio blemish to note.  ADR dialogue is clean and clear throughout and with usually any post dialogue recordings there’s a bit of enclosed reverberations that don’t synch well with the scene that should sound airier.  Optional English subtitles synch fine and are error free with seemingly proper translational grammar.  Special features include an audio discussion between Projection Booth podcast’s Mike White, esoteric and horror film writer and former Video Watchdog contributor Heather Drain, and filmmaker-writer Jess Byard whom provide commentary overtop of the feature but not in synch with watching feature, a feature-length documentary on Arrabal by French novelist Xavier Pasturel Barron that contains interviews with friends, family, and fans of the director, an exclusive interview with cinema historian David Archibald, a new cut trailer from Radiance, and an image gallery.  Radiance continues to impress with the encoded special features and, not to be outshined, the physical features are also a bright light that reflects the essence of the Panic Movement with a clear, a millimeter thicker Amaray presenting the yellow and red background with provocative character imagery at the center that speaks the sex and death motif.  The reverse side has the same color scheme mixed up with an illustration of one of the characters displayed infamously in the film.  The insert contains a 35-page color booklet, bounded end-to-end with the strange and uneasy drawings of Fernando Arrabal, with a 1976 Arrabal interview by film critic and historians Peter Brunette and Gerald Peary and an exclusive essay from Sabina Stent.  Transfer notes as well as a complete cast and crew acknowledgement bookends the booklet’s main courses.  The disc is pressed in a solid, canary yellow with black lettering for the title.  Radiance’s 66th title comes region free release has a runtime of 88 minutes and is not rated. 

Last Rites: War is hell. For Fernando Arrabal, war is ambiguous and surreal. Radiance spotlights every ambivalent corner of Arrabal’s “Viva la Muerte” to light up its anti-nondescript digestion of one boy’s survival of his own maturity during a post-war fascist scrub, a task none too simple to undertake much like Arrabal’s storytelling.

“Viva la Muerte” Limited Edition Won’t Be Around Long. Grab Your Copy Here!

A CIA Plan is Being Sidelined by EVIL’s Rooftop Terrace Sniping! “Goodbye & Amen” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Own a Copy of “Goodbye & Amen” from Radiance Films. Click here to Purchase.

Ambitiously confident CIA agent John Dannahay eagerly wants to begin his plan for an African nation coup.  Based in Italy, Dannahay runs through his team the stage of events when suddenly a current administrative African agent, known for sniffing and snuffing out power-overthrowing schemes, suddenly arrives in town, Dannahay’s friend Harry Lambert up-and-leaves his wife and child and takes a rifle with him, and a gunman, supposedly Lambert, is at the top of a hotel terrace sniping down pedestrians.  Whatever surgical strike Dannahay had plan is now in jeopardy as a hostage situation occurs in one of the hotel rooms and agent Dannahay and Italian inspector Moreno must piece together why a longtime compliant and clean nosed American embassy worker has suddenly gone murderously berserk.  A public stir amidst a shrewd madman with a high-powered rifle creates a confounding panic of national security and for fear of what will happen next in the moment of mayhem.

Italian filmmaker Damiano Damiani, known for his crime thrillers, such as “Mafia” and “Confessions of a Police Captain,” and his small footprint in horror with the sequel “Amityville II:  The Possession,” had cowrite and directed an intense espionage thriller outside the confines of actual cloak-and-dagger activities with a multi-national cast.  The 1977 film titled “Goodbye & Amen”  is first and foremost an Italian production, cowritten by Damiani alongside “Wanted:  Babysitter” screenwriter Nicola Badalucco and is based off the novel “The Grosvenor Square Goodbye” by British writer Francis Clifford.   The gripping story draws upon multi-layered themes and twists to keep the narratively recycling on fresh and to never become stale with its intriguing mystery and taut tension, shot right in the heart of Rome, Italy at the Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria hotel.  “Goodbye & Amen” is a product of Capital Film and Rizzoli Film and produced by the profound producer Mario Cecchi Gori of Michele Soavi’s “The Sect” and Dino Risi’s “The Tiger and the Pussycat.”

Italians.  Americans.  British.  “Goodbye & Amen” has an all-star international cast that lines up and knocks down the perfectly scripted and beguilingly complex roles that warrant nothing less than the utmost praise for their personal performances. What starts off as a CIA caper to overthrow an African nation regime pivots acutely into a hostage standoff with many unanswered questions pelting down almost simultaneously in mass confusion and uproar in what translates to a very relatable, real moment.  Introductions begin with the CIA’s operational leader John Dannahay (Tony Musante, “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage”) spearheading the preparation meeting when suddenly his operational plans become under jeopardy.  Musante’s strongheaded approach to not lose control of the situation is fierce against the challenge his character faces – a lone gunman, a man Dannahay calls a friend played by “Tenebrae’s” John Steiner, holding hostage an actor (Gianrico Tondinelli, “Enter the Devil”) and his illicit mistress (Claudia Cardinale, “8 ½”).  Steiner delivers a sophisticated, twangy-accented killer hellbent on making a statement with a M1 Carbine rifle and a thought-out plan being a step ahead of Dannahay and Italian Inspector Moreno (Fabrizio Jovine, “The Psycho”).  The dynamic between Dannahay and Moreno, in my opinion, is rather lite for a fast and loose Dannahay and a by-the-book Moreno being two stags vying over how to handle an American mess on Italian land.  Other supporting characters add their creative two cents to “Goodbye & Amen’s” already swelling storyline with great additional principals from Renzo Palmer (“The Eroticist”), Wolfango Soldati (“The House at the Edge of the Lake”), John Forsythe (“Scrooged”), and Anna Zinnemann (“My Sister of Ursula”) that fillet down the mystery to reveal its coldblooded nature.

Not lately have I’ve impressed with a crime thriller and said to myself, wow, that was really engaging and unexpectedly good.  With confidence, “Goodbye and Amen” hit that satisfying note, a note thought to have strayed into an obscure black void never to be seen again, but the story coupled by Damiani perceptive big-world direction and some great camera work and angles by cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, that shimmers hints of Kuveiller’s work on previous films like “Deep Red” and “A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin,” and “Goodbye and Amen” is one of the better Italian crime thrillers to come out of the country that isn’t in the giallo subgenre.  Incorporating wide shots with depth and a seriously oversaturation of characters and extras, plus not to forget to mention helicopters and shoot outs, create the illusion of a bigger film without manufacturing too many atmospherics to hoist suspense.  Plenty of red herrings and blunt force action, peppered with bare flesh sensuality, and heedful acting provides the film with an incredibly firm bite that sinks its teeth in and never releases.  Compelling and always one step ahead, “Goodbye & Amen’s” layers of excitement keep viewers simultaneously abreast and in the dark and with the seesaw suspense, which never falters with an overly opaque complex ingenuity, there’s a pleasant rollercoaster effective of up and downs between penetrating thrills and just enough down to Earth exposition in order to catch one’s breath.   

In a new limited edition Blu-ray release from UK distributor Radiance Films on their North American lineup, “Goodbye & Amen” receives a 2023 2K restoration scan from the original camera 35mm negative and presented on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50 in an anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Certainly, a smooth image with no enhancement fluff or over-corrective, off-tilted coloring, the restoration brings out the best parts of Damniano Damiani’s natural approach with key lighting supporting exteriors and some intensely lit interiors without a smidgen of banding or posterization to complicate it. Details are razor sharp and the hue saturation is full-bodied and deep even along the line of a sunny Italian coastline where contours are a nice edge drop-off and shape. The English version has three exclusive shots pulled and scanned from the 16 reversal elements that create a slight grain difference that manages to nearly go unnoticed. Audio options come with the original Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono and, for the first time on home video, the English export in a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono. The English export’s audio track does come with a proclaimed statement right on the main menu about its unresolved damage. Like being pushed through a filter of interference, the English track is intelligible if not entirely clear and free from static and squelch. The Italian track offers a cleaner ordonnance albeit a few in-and-out moments of faint distortion of unrestorable audio ribbon snippets. New and approved English subtitles on both lossless, uncompressed tracks help alleviate some of the technical pain audio aficionados may suffer but, in my honest opinion, the Italian meets the bar whereas the English is under the bar by just a few clicks. Radiance’s special features include a new audio commentary track by Eurocrime experts Nathaniel Thompson and Howard S. Berger, a new interview with editor Antonio Siciliano, and an archival interview with actor Wolfango Soldati. Both interviews are in Italian with burned in English subtitles. Radiance’s physical approach to their releases is highly unique in format by using obscure poster elements, and sometimes often new illustrated art and compositions, to exact a striking front cover image. With “Goodbye & Amen,” the rendition of Italian’s finest in their version of S.W.A.T. body armor within the sites of a crosshair is clever and engaging to know more. The reverse cover offers more of the common language poster art. A 19-page color booklet, that contents the cast and crew information, transfer notes and credits, and a new essay from Lucio Rinaldi entitled “The American Connection: Damiano Damiani’s Goodbye & Amen,” accompanies a reserved blue background and yellow font disc art that befits Radiance’s retro-classy style. Being a UK distributor releasing in the North American market lends the title to have a region A and B playback for two varied runtimes, for the Italian and English version tracks, of 110 (Italian) and 102 (English) minutes. Radiance’s 38th release is also not rated.

Last Rites: “Goodbye & Amen” is a collaborative triumph, an arresting story anchored by monolithic performances, and imparted by director Daminano Damiani with attention, detail, and substance that makes the film a pillar amongst the Eurocrime narrative.

Own a Copy of “Goodbye & Amen” from Radiance Films. Click here to Purchase.