ADDITION: Artificial Eye - Region 0 - PAL - November 2010: The short take on this is that the image quality doesn't exhibit enough differences - both are dual-layered, anamorphic and progressive. If forced to choose I might give a small edge to the UK release - for skin tones and detail - but these are still both negligible.

Both have the same audio options - and both offer English subtitles (slightly different font and rendering). Oscilloscope offer more 'organized' extras with the Behind the Scenes etc. where Artificial Eye have 6 trailers and 25-minutes of B-Roll footage. This is kind of a wash too although technically AE gives you more (time-wise).

So the issues, for some, will be the PAL speedup - and the price - at current conversion the AE is over $10 less (the AE is £9.99 GBP = $16.01 USD - the NTSC is $26.99 USD) - independent of location shipping. I still really like this film - it has grown on me well since my first viewing about 6-months ago. I suggest giving this a spin - the edition is your choice. 

***

ON THE OSCILLOSCOPE DVD: This is a pretty interesting movie and lead performance. It approaches being fascinating at times although I don't know if it fully achieves it. The filmmaking itself, especially pacing, are brilliant. There is a lot here, beyond the black-comedy aspects, to remind one of Buñuel. That alone would be worth the indulgence for some. It's uniqueness is yet another. 

The progressive and anamorphic, dual-layered transfer seems to replicate the original source as well as one might anticipate. The bitrate is very high. The film, itself, has extensive jittery, hand-held, camera techniques that lend The Maid to a more vérité expression. Haziness is, therefore, part of the presentation. There is expectant noise from the SD medium rendering (colors seem likewise flatter) but detail shows some impressiveness in the infrequent close-ups. It is very clean and looks... as it looks. The Maid is probably less about image quality and more about the narrative. It does the job visually in my opinion.

Audio gives two, original, Spanish options - a 2.0 channel stereo and unchallenged 5.1. With an Indie feel there is some scattering of dialogue but everything is audible with minor separations and effects in the Surround option.  There are optional English subtitles (example below) and the disc is region free in the NTSC standard.

Extras consist of six shortish Behind the Scenes Clips from time with director Silva, Catalina Saavedra (Raquel), Claudia Celedón (Pilar), Anita Reeves (Sonia) and Mariana Loyola (Lucy) and it wraps with a 'last lunch'. This run a total of around 20-minutes. Following that is a brief production piece on storyboarding (3-minutes) and a photo gallery. The package is a beautiful 4-tiered slip case with fabulous cover art on the box housing it. Oscilloscope have done another excellent job at their end.

I watched this as soon as it arrived and would like to 'live' with my viewing for a while before making any definitive judgments. It is definitely worthy of mulling over. I can state that I enjoyed watching The Maid for more than the simple aspect of it being 'different'. It has quite a bit to offer and I suggest seeing it for yourself. I wish all the DVDs that arrive were this 'interesting'.  

Gary W. Tooze