Tickets

directed by Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach
Italy / UK / Iran 2005

Three highly acclaimed directors join together to direct three interwoven stories that take place during a journey from Central Europe to Rome. The characters connect through casual encounters and set forth a story of love, chance and sacrifice. One older businessman finds solace and a new insight into life when he is forced to wait at the train station due to bad weather. A young man is reminded of life’s obligations but is also introduced to love. And three Scottish youths on their way to the football match of their dreams are forced to open their eyes and see the bigger picture. One single train journey sparks many changes for many people. This is a film about privilege and exclusion, and the reality of the value of just one ticket.

The making of ‘Tickets’ started with a conversation between director Abbas Kiarostami and producers Carlo Cresto-Dina and Babak Karimi. Kiarostami suggested the idea of a trilogy of feature-length documentaries to be directed by three different directors. When asked to name the directors he would have liked to have on board, he immediately mentioned Ermanno Olmi and Ken Loach. A fax was sent to the two masters, who both immediately replied with an almost identical phone call: 'I am in! The three of us can make tremendous work together'.

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Theatrical Release: Germany 14 February 2005 (Berlin International Film Festival)

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DVD Review: Artificial-Eye - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Per-Olof Strandberg for the Review!

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Distribution
Artificial-Eye

Region 2 - PAL

Runtime 1:44:52 (4% PAL speedup)

Video
1:1.85 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 6.16 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 Italian; Albanian; English (Dolby Digital 2.0)

Subtitles English (for foreign language dialogue), English (entire film), None

Features Release Information:
Studio: Artificial-Eye
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1:1.85

Edition Details:
• Tickets x 3 (55:11 / 4:3)
• Trailer (1:56 / Open matte format)
• Production notes (3 pages)
• Biographies

DVD Release Date: 24 April 2006
Keep Case

Chapters 12

Comments:

Almost as visible as the work of these three personal directors, there's a difference in the style of the cinematographers that they collaborated with.

If I use the second DP's Mahmoud Kalari work as the standard for these DVD, I must say that it's a very good digital transfer. Mahmoud Kalari uses Deep Focus in his pictures, and it seems to be the most rewarding element's to transfer to digital media. The first episode is shot by Fabio Olmi. He uses a very yellow filter and it's the only episode that is shot at night. For that reason some parts are made in a wagon on the spot with background projection. That makes Olmi's episode more "theatrical" than the other's. Also the picture on the DVD is a little bit more problematic. The third episode is photographed by Chris Menges. He uses less depth, than Kalari, making the picture on these DVD occasionally a little bit soft (I'm sure that they aren't on a cinema print).

The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is flawless, even tough I don't understand the policy at Artificial-Eye, to constantly dump the original 5.1 sound. I'm sure that even in this film, where most of the sound is a moving train and dialog, the definition would be more dynamic in DD 5.1.

I believe that the R1 disc is a PAL port from the very same source as this one, so it seems that the Artificial-Eye DVD is, for the moment, the best English friendly option.

Highly recommended.

- Per-Olof Strandberg

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