Aleksandr's Price - Anatoli Grek

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

directed by Pau Masó and David Damen
USA 2013

If BLACK SWAN were a film about a male escort rather than a ballerina (and had a dash of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM thrown in), it would probably be something like ALEKSANDR'S PRICE (although a bit more relentless, much more overblown, and without the hint of hopeful optimism). When his depressed mother - who came to New York in search of her children's runaway father - commits suicide and his sister runs off with the family savings, Russian immigrant Aleksandr (writer/director Pau Maso) is left without any means of support since he is an illegal. His only friend Emma (Samantha Glovin) attempts to help him by introducing him to a club owner, but the man offers him a job as a pole dancer rather than a waiter. Initially hesitant, Aleksandr finds himself enjoying being watched and desired; and his first sexual encounter with another man has his partner - married businessman Keith (Josh Berresford, AVERSION) - mistaking him for an escort. Not in a position to refuse the five hundred bucks, Aleksandr reluctantly drifts into escorting. After a bad experience in which he is drugged and has no memory of what transpired, Aleksandr tries to search for a legitimate job but drifts back into prostitution more out of a need for human contact than the ability to pay the rent (since every man he tries to forge a friendship with mistakes him for a whore). His profound loneliness and the increasingly dangerous situations he finds himself in start to take a tole on his sanity to the point where he cannot even trust himself with those who seem to genuinely want to help him.

Eric Cotenas

Theatrical Release: 24 September 2013 (USA)

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DVD Review: QC Cinema/Breaking Glass Pictures - Region 1 - NTSC

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	QC Cinema/Breaking Glass Pictures Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime	1:47:20
Video	1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 5.18 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	English/Russian Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
Subtitles	English (CC), none
Features	Release Information: Studio: QC Cinema/Breaking Glass Pictures Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1 Edition Details: • Interview with Pau Masó (16:9; 13:17) • Photo Gallery • Theatrical Trailer (16:9; 2:19) • Trailers for 'Laurence Anyways' and 'I Do' DVD Release Date: September 24th, 2013 Amaray Chapters 15

Comments

Breaking Glass' dual-layer features a progressive, anamorphic transfer framed at 1.78:1 (the box says 2.35:1 but it doesn't look cropped, and subtitles for some Russian dialogue are far too low on the frame for the image to be matted). Shot with Cannon DSLR cameras, the HD-sourced image is generally quite good, although both compression and moody color grading seem to have introduced some rare instances of banding. The stereo soundtrack is well-rendered in Dolby Digital 2.0 (mainly dialogue, the loud soundtrack, location sounds, and sound effects from free digital libraries). English closed-captioning is also included.

The only substantial extra is an interview featurette in which the Spanish-born writer/director/actor Pau Maso talks about the inspiration for the story (when he was living in New York, he worked as a dancer and was offered escorting jobs), casting the New York actors from his native Spain via video attachments, working on his Russian accent, and the reasons for his choices for the character (pretty much to make the story as twisted as possible). The press release mentions the presence of deleted scenes, and there are indeed two complete scenes presented within the featurette as self-contained chapters (although Maso mentions the original cut was over three hours, and that a lot of the sex scenes were actually cut back to focus on the emotional aspect of the story).

- Eric Cotenas

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