It was with great anticipation that I prepared my viewing of "The Son" in my Home Theatre. I had considered the Dardenne Brothers two previous efforts as masterpieces of modern cinema. I soon settled into a cerebral mindset with my infant son playing on the floor at my feet. The film started, ran and floated to its eventual conclusion. My initial impressions were that I enjoyed it in the same manner that I had "Rosetta" and "La Promesse". The structure was complimentary: details brought to our attention through inference and action rather than blatant repetitive dialogue. The focus was on the actions, often mundane, of one character who we were to bond, learn about, and voyeuristically view with his simple day-to-day mannerisms of existence. The film climaxed late with a blurted-out confession (much less eviscerating than "La Promesse"). Yes, many areas were duplicated in the Dardenne's previous work... but saying that I was only moderately disappointed in this lack of divergence for "The Son". In the overall acceptance of the film, it did however lack something for me. Whether it was the ability of Olivier Gourmet to carry the film or, what I would more likely surmise, that each piece of the formulated puzzle did not progress in the same manner as I was anticipating. Each scene in "Rosetta", for example, was an important lynchpin in the entire feel of the story. In The Son, I did not find this was the case. Perhaps, like many great cinema achievements this film will grow on me. In fact, I am certain it will. I still recommend it as a great work by two studious and highly detailed auteurs. It did hit me, but perhaps not as hard as I was hoping. I could have had my expectations too stratospheric, but regardless I had about 80% enjoyment and 20% "withdrawal", if that term makes any sense here. Others will surely disagree but I give this film  out of , which only goes to show my extremely high praise for their other two films.

New Yorker obviously purchased and ported the Artificial Eye transfer, but they did not adjust for the PAL speedup by re-mastering on NTSC. Hence we have a lot of ghosting and a less sharp image. New Yorker did make this a dual layered DVD and was able to squeeze in all the Extras from the Artificial Eye's 2 disc set onto one disc since they did not utilize the Italian dub, the 5.1 French audio or the alternate (than English) subtitles that the Region 2 disc has. (NOTE: The Artificial Eye is two single layered discs). Even the New Yorker Extras have 'ghosting'. The New Yorker DVD has that usual greenish tinge that many of their releases have. Skin tones look a shade redder in the Artificial Eye. The New Yorker has a minimal amount cropped off the top edge. The Artificial Eye subtitles are superior as well.

To read an extensive article on PAL Speedup (which both discs have by the way) from our friends at Masters of Cinema  please visit HERE.