Youth Without Youth [Blu-ray]
(Francis Ford
Coppola, 2007)
Review by Gary Tooze
Studio:
Theatrical: Sony Pictures
Blu-ray: Sony Home Entertainment
Disc:
Region: A
Runtime: 2:03:47
Chapters: 34
Size: 50GB
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: May 13th, 2008
Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audio
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, DUB:
French: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH, English, French, none
Extras:
• Commentary by Director Francis
Ford Coppola
Featurettes:
•
Making of...
• The Music for
Youth Without Youth
• Youth Without Youth -
The Makeup
• Blu-ray trailers
Synopsis: Francis Ford Coppola
returns to the realm of his mastery with
a new film about growing young. A bolt
of lightning strikes Dominic Matei (Tim
Roth) so close to death that he begins
to age backwards. When he grows from 70
to 40 in a week, he draws the attention
of the Nazis and the world. Now he's
running for his life with a new love and
no hope of knowing his phenomenal fate.
***
Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), an aging
professor of linguistics, survives a
cataclysmic event to find his youth
miraculously restored. Dominic's
physical rejuvenation is matched by a
highly evolved intellect, which attracts
the attention of Nazi scientists,
forcing him into exile. While on the
run, he reunites with his lost love,
Laura, and works to complete his
research into the origins of human
language. When his research threatens
Laura's well being, Dominic is forced to
choose between his life's work and the
great love of his life.
The Film:
The years have brought no peace to
Francis Ford Coppola, a decade MIA and
the victim of his own history. If his
early masterpiece, The Godfather, was a
remarkable feat of alchemy—transforming
Mario Puzo’s tawdry potboiler into an
epic meditation on American
family—Coppola today leases his
seriousness from the highbrow. The
source for Youth Without Youth is
an excruciatingly obtuse novella by
Romanian religious historian Mircea
Eliade, about a professor struck by
lightning who awakes to find his body 30
years younger. As played by Tim Roth,
Dominic Mattei is an obvious stand-in
for Coppola himself (though if Dominic’s
life’s work—discovering the origin of
language—represents the true scope of
Coppola’s ambitions, it may be time to
return to pinot noir).
Coppola works overtime on mood—opening
with beguiling Vertigo-inspired credits,
turning his camera upside down and
sideways, upstaging his actors with a
meticulous set design. Tracing the
connections among physician Bruno Ganz,
a Nazi dominatrix, a lost love (also a
reincarnated Indian noble) and Dominic’s
Dostoyevsky-by-way-of-Gollum double is a
tantalizing proposition, but it requires
more trust than Coppola earns.
Increasingly protective of his artistic
integrity, the director resembles
The Conversation’s Harry Caul—tearing
up the walls and playing his music, even
if no one is listening.
Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide located
HERE
Image: Visually this film on
1080P looks quite marvelous. The
striking cinematography seems to pick-up
steam as the film progresses.
Detail has some moments but is rather
conservative / moderate for Blu-ray
(although it is consistent throughout
the film), but colors look true - never
expanding behind their borders of hue
and brilliance and contrast is tight -
without stooping to crushing black
levels. Noise is very minor (I only
noted two semi-prominent instances) and
overall the image quality is
above-average - even for 1080
resolution. Now, it is a modern film and
pristinely clean, but the combination of
expert framing and outdoorsy vistas,
later in the film, reflect a
professional presentation worthy of fans
of this new format.
Audio & Music: We are given
only given a very adept Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track (and
similar French DUB). This is suitable
for the mostly dialogue driven film and
the levels remain consistent. There is
some interesting Românian (eastern
Europe anyway) music on viola, Balogh
and Kálmán (cymbalom) that reminded me
much of Kaufman's
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(Milan Kundera’s “unfilmable” novel). It
is all very subtle and understated and
Coppola never resorts to overusing the
soundtrack to elicit emotion. It is
supported by English (CC or stan.), or French subtitles.
NOTE: For the non-English dialogue in
the film (and there is a fair amount),
my DVD defaulted to showing the
non-removable text in French (same font
as chosen subs) - could be it uses the
last sub option for its standard. It
changed to Eng. when I ran the English
subtitles for a few moments - then
selected 'none' again.
Extras: Coppola gives a standard
commentary giving away some explanations
as to onscreen events... and his ideas
behind/motivations. I think some would
get a lot out of it - especially fans of
the director. On top of that are three
relatively short featurettes on the
Making of... (production details,
often behind the scenes, with Coppola),
Music, and make-up (extensively
utilized - very detailed - in Youth
Without Youth).
Bottom line: I suppose purchase
of this might rest on a decision of the
film's value. I'll say this - it was
extremely interesting and I don't know
if it became purposely meandering in the
final third but I was still attentive
throughout. I don't think I fully
understood it but the commentary helped
a lot. Some will appreciate the
vagueness - drawing conclusion by
themselves, and others might dismiss it
as confusing. Regardless, I doubt anyone
will be disappointed in the film's
inventiveness or imaginative directions.
Visually, the cinematography is a huge
plus.
The Blu-ray itself is quite gorgeous and
a fine, upstanding transfer to 1080P. I
have no quibbles with the image or audio
and the extras (especially the
commentary) may be appealing enough to
shift the balance towards a purchase.
I'll be watching this again at some
point - it was quite a unique viewing
experience.
Gary Tooze
May 10th, 2008
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