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The Almodóvar Collection (Vol.1)

'Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown'         'Pepi, Luci, Bom'   

 'Dark Habits'              'What Have I Done To Deserve This?' 

 

Pedro Almodóvar is the king of Spanish cinema, and perhaps the most known Spanish film director ever. In Spain, everything about him and his films are surrounded by scandals, from early production, to premiere to the films themselves, as if the press is more interested in what lover he has, what he weights and who sleeps with who, than in what the film is about. Wherever Almodóvar is, hysteria breaks out. He is Almodóvar. He is a brand. He is Spanish film personified.

His films are work of art. Tasteless, kitsch, campy, hysterically and absurd. Definitely. Uncompromising, provocative, transgressive and taboo-breaking. Absolutely. Almodóvar knows when to pay homage to the masters and borrows from everyone. In “What have I done to deserve this?” he quotes neo-realism, Bunuel, Wilder and Waters, even has Carmen Mauro dub Joan Crawford from “Johnny Guitar” in “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

His preferred mode of cinema is the melodrama, his muse is Carmen Maura, who so often plays a woman on the verge of reality, and thru her being can create his unique version of Madrid and Spain.

The Almodóvar Collection – Volume 1, is a collection of his early films up until his breakthrough and key film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

(aka "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" )

 

directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Spain

 

Loosely based upon a play by Jean Cocteau, and by Almodóvar considered his key film, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" demonstrates many of the future elements of his oeuvre, here especially hysterically women.

The story begins with Pepa (Carmen Maura), distraught my her break-up with her boyfriend, prepares her suicide by gazpacho with sleeping pills, as she is saved by her best friend, who is on the run, only later to have her ex-lovers grown up son's fiancée falling asleep, because she ate of the gazpacho and him having an affair with her best friend.

When Almodóvar talks about it as his key film, it may be because we here find motifs later explores in especially "Live Flesh" and "All about my Mother", but also here he hits the tone of this flamboyant often campy colorful mise-en-scene, where he pays homage to his many influences, as for instance Salvatore Dali.

Henrik Sylow

Posters

Theatrical Release: March 23, 1988 (Barcelona)

Reviews    More Reviews  DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Optimum (The Almodóvar Collection - Volume 1) - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for the Review!

DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

Part of the The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1) which includes 'Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', 'Pepi, Luci, Bom', 'Dark Habits', and 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?'

Distribution

Optimum

Region 2 - PAL
Runtime 1:25:17 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

1.78:1 Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 4.87 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate

Audio 2.0 Dolby Digital Spanish
Subtitles Fixed Subtitles
Features Release Information:
Studio: Optimum

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1

Edition Details:
• Introduction by José Arroyo (7:02 / 16x9)

DVD Release Date: November 14, 2005
Boxed digipack

Chapters 12

 

 

Comments

GENERAL ABOUT THE BOX

Three of the films are introduced by Almodóvar expert José Arroyo, who briefly introduces the films, its background, its history, how it related to Almodóvar and thus forth. A superb introduction.

José Arroyo is missing from "What have I done to deserve this?", which also from the design of the menus, appear to be from a different source.

While all films are based on recent digitally remastered transfers, the quality is by no means perfect. All being DVD5, all transfers display the typical compression artifacts. They also all have fixed subtitles, which most likely is to be contributed legal demands.

The worst about the images is the cropping. While "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" remains close to its original AR, one film is cropped into 1.75:1, and another by 15% into 1.95:1 from OAR of 1.66:1. This is however none of Optimum's fault, as this was the only source they were able to obtain, which is curious, as Wellspring has released "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" in OAR of 1.66.

Despite being a discount box, the problems with the AR notes this as being a release way below par for Optimum.

Optimum is currently preparing The Almodóvar Collection - Volume 2, which is scheduled to be released in June 2006. It will contain "Law of Desire", "Matador", "Flower of My Secret" and "Kika".

------

RE: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown:
A decent image. There are signs of color banding, but in general artifacts are at a minimum. Colors are strong, but details lacking.

 - Henrik Sylow

 

 





DVD Menus

 

 

Screen Captures


subtitle sample
Captures resized to 800px from 1016px native resolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(aka "Pepi, Luci, Bom" )

 

directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Spain 1980

 

Set during the Madrid's punk-era, it tells the story of the fashionable pot-smoking Pepi (Carmen Maura), her neighbor the docile housewife Luci and the rock star Bom, who when Pepi is raped by a policeman helps her get revenge.

****

A woman takes revenge on her rapist by introducing his wife to the pleasures of lesbianism. Early offering from Pedro Almodovar.

When Maura is raped by a neighborhood policeman she vows to take revenge. She doesn't waste any time introducing his wife into a world of lesbian sex encapsulated by a singer into S&M.

Pedro Almodóvar early film surprises in that all his obsessions are already present and correct, and it is only its minuscule budget and some cinematic immaturity which differentiate Pepi, Luci, Bom from his later work.

If its aim is to shock, it does so admirably: in fact it is some of this film's raw energy and sheer inventiveness which seems to have gone missing form Almodóvar later work.

Poster

Theatrical Release: October 27, 1980

Reviews    More Reviews    DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Optimum (The Almodovar Collection - Volume 1) - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for the Review!

DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

Part of the The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1) which includes 'Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', 'Pepi, Luci, Bom', 'Dark Habits', and 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?'

Distribution

Optimum

Region 2 - PAL
Runtime 1:17:33 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

1.60 Original Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 4.87 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate

Audio 2.0 Dolby Digital Spanish
Subtitles Fixed Subtitles
Features Release Information:
Studio: Optimum

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen - 1.60

Edition Details:
• Introduction by José Arroyo (10:41 / 16x9)

DVD Release Date:
Boxed digipack

Chapters 12

 

 

Comments Presented in what is close to its OAR of 1.66:1, the transfer is suffering from the quality of the original film, it is very grainy and dark, and as such, compression artifacts are quiet visible.

 

 

DVD Menus

 

 

Screen Captures


subtitle sample
Captures in 768 px native resolution

 

 

 

 

 

(aka "Dark habits" )

 

directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Spain 1983

On its face this 1984 comedy by Pedro Almodóvar (Law of Desire) ought to be one of his most irreverent: Yolanda (Cristina S. Pascual), a junkie and nightclub singer, runs to a convent to escape a murder rap, where the freewheeling nuns (including Carmen Maura, Julieta Serrano, and Marisa Paredes)--who favor such things as LSD and soft-core porn--try to save her soul. Unfortunately, the results are rather limp as narrative, and the better moments never quite make up for the sluggish filmmaking. Worst of all, the film commits an act of inexcusable (and tacky) vandalism: appropriating one of the most beautiful film scores ever written (by Miklos Rozsa, for Resnais' Providence) without any acknowledgment and using diverse fragments of it with no sensitivity whatsoever. This is in no way an hommage, but an act of theft.

Excerpt from Jonathan Rosenbaum's review at the Chicago Reader located HERE

Poster

Theatrical Release: May 6, 1988 (New York City, New York)

Reviews      More Reviews     DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Optimum (The Almodovar Collection - Volume 1) - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for the Review!

DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

Part of the The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1) which includes 'Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', 'Pepi, Luci, Bom', 'Dark Habits', and 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?'

Distribution

Optimum

Region 2 - PAL
Runtime 1:36:04 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

1.96:1 Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 4.59 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate

Audio 2.0 Dolby Digital Spanish
Subtitles Fixed Subtitles
Features Release Information:
Studio: Optimum

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.96:1

Edition Details:
• Introduction by José Arroyo (8:50 / 16x9)

DVD Release Date:
Boxed digipack

Chapters 12

 

 

Comments Something has gone serious wrong here. The film has the OAR of 1.66:1, but is presented in 1.96:1, which is a 15% cropping of the image. Nothing can justify neither such cropping or to crop into an AR of approx. 2:1. Unacceptable.

A shame, as the image is beautiful. It does lack some sharpness in detail, and there are signs of especially color banding, but overall, the image is superb.

DVD Menus
 

 

Screen Captures


subtitle sample
Captures resized to 800px from 1016px native resolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(aka "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" )

 

directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Spain 1984

 

A almost typical Almodóvar melodrama about an overworked housewife, hooked on amphetamines in order to cook and clean the house, her male chauvinistic husband, who when not driving his taxi works on a plot to forge Hitler's memoirs, her mother-in-law, and her one son, who deals heroin for a living, and her other who is adopted out to a lecherous dentist.

Poster

Theatrical Release: October 25, 1984

Reviews       More Reviews     DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Optimum (The Almodovar Collection - Volume 1) - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for the Review!

DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

Part of the The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1) which includes 'Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', 'Pepi, Luci, Bom', 'Dark Habits', and 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?'

Distribution

Optimum

Region 2 - PAL
Runtime 1:37:19 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

1.74:1 Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 4.54 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate

Audio 2.0 Dolby Digital Spanish
Subtitles Fixed Subtitles
Features Release Information:
Studio: Optimum

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.74:1

Edition Details:
• Trailer (1:33 / 4:3)
• International Artwork Gallery (5 different posters)

DVD Release Date:
Digipack Box

Chapters 15

 

Comments Once again, the OAR image of 1.66:1 has been cropped, here only by 5% into 1.74:1. Once again, the image suffers from the films original poor source. Compression artifacts are obvious, details are lacking, but overall a decent image.

 

DVD Menus
 

 

Screen Captures


subtitle sample
Captures resized to 800px from 1016px native resolution

 

 

 

 

 

 
DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

Part of the The Almodovar Collection (Vol.1) which includes 'Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', 'Pepi, Luci, Bom', 'Dark Habits', and 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?'

Distribution

Optimum

Region 2 - PAL




 

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