NOTE: Avoid the Canadian Alliance version HERE as it has no supplements!

 

Review by Gary Tooze

 

Production:

Theatrical: In-Cine Compañía Industrial Cinematográfica

Video: Studio Canal / Lions Gate

 

Disc:

Region: 'B'-locked - Lions Gate Region 'A' (as verified by the Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)

Runtime: 1:43:43.625 / 1:43:43.625

Disc Size: 43,607,271,955 bytes / 45,536,505,684 bytes

Feature Size: 24,266,096,640 bytes / 22,779,248,640 bytes

Video Bitrate: 24.34 Mbps / 24.35 Mbps

Chapters: 12 (both)

Case: Digi-book Blu-ray case / Standard Blu-ray case

Release date: September 10th, 2012 / January 29th, 2013

 

Video:

Aspect ratio: 1.69:1 (both)

Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps

Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Audio:

DTS-HD Master Audio English 1616 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1616 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
DTS-HD Master Audio French 1584 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1584 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
DTS-HD Master Audio German 1618 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1618 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)

DTS-HD Master Audio English 1616 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1616 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
DTS-HD Master Audio French 1584 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1584 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)

 

Subtitles:

English, French, German, none

English, French, none

 

Extras:

• Arbitrary Desire (Interview with Jean- Claude Carrière) - 33:52
• Interview with Carlos Saura (11:16)
• Double Dames (interview with Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) - 35:53
• A Portrait if Luis Bunuel (Interview with Pierre Lary and Edmond Richard) - 15:34
• Plus a booklet on the movie written by Peter William Evans, Author of Luis Bunuel; Subjectivity and Desire

• Interview with Carlos Saura (11:44)

• The Arbitrariness of Desire (Interview with Jean- Claude Carrière) - 35:16

• Lady Dames (interview with Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) - 37:31

• Portrait of an Impatient Filmmaker - 16:12

NO Booklet

 

Bitrate:

Studio Canal

 

 

Lions Gate

 

Description: Adapted from Pierre Louÿs’ 1898 novel ‘Le Femme et le Pantin’, That Obscure Object of Desire marked Bunuel’s final film. Recounted in flashback to a group of railway travellers, the story wryly details the romantic perils of Mathieu (Bunuel favourite Fernando Rey), a wealthy middle-aged French sophisticate who falls desperately in love with his 19-year-old former chambermaid Conchita (Carole Bouquet).

Thus begins a surreal game of sexual cat-and-mouse, with Mathieu obsessively attempting to win the girl’s affections as she manipulates his carnal desires, each vying to gain absolute control of the other. Brimming with the subversive wit which characterises Bunuel’s finest work, That Obscure Object of Desire takes satiric aim at a decadent, decaying society riddled with political unrest and moral bankruptcy.

 

 

The Film:

Luis Buñuel’s final film explodes with eroticism, bringing full circle the director’s lifelong preoccupation with the darker side of desire. Buñuel regular Fernando Rey plays Mathieu, an urbane widower, tortured by his lust for the elusive Conchita. With subversive flare, Buñuel uses two different actresses in the lead—Carole Bouquet, a sophisticated French beauty, and Angela Molina, a Spanish coquette. Drawn from Pierre Louÿs’s 1898 novel, La Femme et le Pantin, That Obscure Object of Desire is a dizzying game of sexual politics punctuated by a terror that harkens back to Buñuel’s brilliant surrealistic beginnings.

***

Adapted from Pierre Louys' 1898 novel La Femme et le Pantin, That Obscure Object of Desire is the 30th and final film... from the great Luis Buñuel. Recounted in flashback to a group of railway travellers, the story wryly details the romantic perils of Mathieu (Buñuel favorite Fernando Rey), a wealthy, middle-aged French sophisticate who falls desperately in love with his 19-year-old former chambermaid Conchita. Thus begins a surreal game of sexual cat-and-mouse, with Mathieu obsessively attempting to win the girl's affections as she manipulates his carnal desires, each vying to gain absolute control of the other. Brimming with the subversive wit which characterizes all of Buñuel's finest work, That Obscure Object of Desire takes satiric aim at a decadent, decaying society riddled by political unrest and moral bankruptcy. The picture is absurdist even in its casting -- Rey's dialogue was dubbed by the French actor Michel Piccoli, while the two-faced, hot-and-cold Conchita is played, logically enough, by two different actresses (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina, respectively), with the character's dialogue spoken by yet a third performer. The same Louys novel was also filmed by Josef von Sternberg in 1935 as the Marlene Dietrich vehicle The Devil Is a Woman, and again in 1959 as Julien Duvivier's La Femme et le Pantin, starring Brigitte Bardot.

Excerpt from MRQE  located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

This Studio Canal Blu-ray is compared to the Criterion Blu-ray HERE

 

That Obscure Object of Desire looks consistent on Blu-ray from Studio Canal - not particularly crisp but there is a film-like thickness and some desirable depth.  The image quality is smooth but not glossy and colors are reasonably authentic. It has a tendency to dull and waxy but never excessive enough to point fingers. This Blu-ray offers a fine, although not overwhelming, video presentation without noise, speckles, damage or artefacts.

The Lions Gate, as expected, has the exact same video transfer with only the opening 'Blu-ray releasing' logo different - see the running time (to the 1/1000th of a second), the bitrate, encode etc. Essentially the exact same image transfer as the Studio Canal.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio :

The audio is offered in French and the English and German DUBs - all via lossless DTS-HD Master 2.0 channels at around 1600 kbps. Everything seems correct and unremarkable - but accurate to its theatrical roots. There are optional English, French or German subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region 'B'-locked.

Audio loses the German DUB and subtitles but is otherwise an absolute duplicate of the Studio Canal audio transfer excepting it is region 'A'.

 

Extras :

Great extras with Arbitrary Desire - a 1/2 hour interview with the always interesting Jean- Claude Carrière, plus a 10-minute follow-up with Carlos Saura. Entitled 'Double Dames', we get a 30-minute interview with Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina and lastly a 16-minute portrait of Luis Buñuel via an interview with Pierre Lary and Edmond Richard. This is housed in a nicely appointed Digi-book with an essay on the movie written by Peter William Evans, Author of Luis Buñuel; Subjectivity and Desire.

The Studio Canal offers a shade more than the Lions Gate as it includes the booklet that is absent on the Lions Gate which is housed in a standard Blu-ray Case (no Digi-book). It is amusing to see the menu extra name differences; ex. 'Arbitrary Desire' vs. 'The Arbitrariness of Desire' and Double Dames as opposed to Lady Dames. But it all seems here although perhaps A Portrait if Luis Bunuel and the other 3 are running in PAL while the US release ones are in NTSC.

 

 

Lions Gate

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
Buñuel on Blu-ray is a reason to rejoice all on its own. That Obscure Object of Desire is always interesting with the narrative filled with moral, social, cultural, political and, especially, psychological conundrums at every turn. This was part of the grouping that was taken from Criterion's vast arthouse list and eventually a 1080P LionsGate, North American release may surface. This Blu-ray has impressive value. I think it's definitely worth picking up and for Buñuel fans it should amount to an essential apart of their digital library. Recommended!

The review was just to confirm the many, and expected, similarities in the US Blu-ray package and the slight differences. Essentially, we lose the Digi-book but everything else is the same as the European edition. This is a shade pricey but for Buñuel fans - worth every penny. They, truly, do not make films like this any more. Nothing is even close. 

Gary Tooze

September 18th, 2012