Review by Eric Cotenas and Gary Tooze
Production:
Theatrical: Vitrine Filmes
Blu-ray: Strand Releasing
Disc:
Region: 'A'
(as verified by the
Oppo Blu-ray player)
Runtime: 1:36:29.492
Disc Size: 48,722,583,815 bytes
Feature Size: 29,627,752,320 bytes
Video Bitrate: 34.91 Mbps
Chapters: 8
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: March 17th, 2015
Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Bitrate:
Audio:
DTS-HD Master Audio Portuguese 3498 kbps 5.1
/ 48 kHz / 3498 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1
/ 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Descriptive Audio:
Dolby Digital Audio English 448 kbps 5.1 /
48 kHz / 448 kbps / DN -4dB
Subtitles:
English, Spanish, none
Extras:
• Deleted Scenes (14:20)
• Behind the Scenes (9:39)
• Interview with the Cast and Crew (26:06)
• Short film 'I Don't Want to Go Back Alone'
(17:02)
• Theatrical Trailer (1:43)
• Trailers for 'Edge of Seventeen',
'Romeos', 'Lilting', and 'Girlhood'
The Film:
Although the plot is rife for clichè
melodramatic incident and plenty of angst,
yet THE WAY HE LOOKS - or TODAY, I
DON'T WANT TO GO BACK ALONE - manages to
be a simultaneously light-hearted and
thoughtful in its exploration of the teenage
wants and desires (love, sex, friendship,
acceptance, freedom, fear) that tug the
heart in all directions at the same time.
Blind teenager Leonardo (Ghilherme Lobo) has
come to resent his overprotective parents (Lúcia
Romano and Eucir de Souza) and entertains
ideas of escape, from a few hours wandering
the city to the extreme of an exchange
program anywhere where "no one knows who you
are." He is even starting to grow weary of
caretaking from his best friend and
confidante Giovana (Tess Amorim) who the
class bullies refer to as his "human walking
stick" and guide dog. When handsome new
student Gabriel (Fabio Audi) joins the
class, Giovana is smitten and Leonardo
maneuvers his best friend and her crush into
an acquaintance. While at first it seems as
though this triangular relationship will
soon leave Leonardo on his own, it is
Giovana who feels sidelined when the class
is divided into pairs by sex for a
semester-length assignment.
Although not a faraway place, Gabriel proves
sufficiently different from the familiar for
Leonardo to step outside of his safety
zones; however, a thread of desire is
weaving its way into this newfound
friendship, and Leonardo is disturbed by it.
Leonardo – like Giovana in his absence –
lets his guard down with the class bullies
as he tries to searches for acceptance, and
soon equates Giovana's and Gabriel's
individual attempts to protect him to be as
controlling as his parents' vehement
objections to the possibility of the foreign
exchange program. When his parents relent to
his going on the school's camping trip, the
closeness of Leonardo and Gabriel falls
under merciless scrutiny from their
classmates, and jealousies and insecurities
threaten to drive Leonardo, Gabriel, and
Giovana apart as the nights devolve into a
Bacchanalian morass of sex and alcohol.
Image:
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
captures were taken directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.
NOTE: The title is translated both as THE
WAY HE LOOKS and the literal translation
I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK ALONE. It
changes to I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK ALONE
(also the title of the short) before the
ending credits.
Strand give us an impressive dual-layered
1080P transfer with a max'ed out bitrate.
I can't imagine it looking any better
than is exported by this BD. Colors are
authentic, pastels rich, detail very
pleasing and frequent depth is noted. It was
hot on digital (Red Epic, Cooke S4 Lenses)
and has the attributes of that process. The
darker scenes (many later in the film) of
the film show no noise or artifacts of any
kind. I presume this, flawless, appearance
is a strong replication of how the film was
viewed theatrically.
CLICK EACH
BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio & Music:
The original-language Portuguese DTS-HD
Master 5.1 track is extremely robust at
3498 kbps.
It easily handles all the film puts out.
There is almost no aggression - mostly
dialogue-driven although keen, subtle,
sounds are used putting the viewer in mind
of one who is blind - beyond touches and
smells. There is no score per-se but we do
have a snippet mixture of music in the film
including David Bowie's Modern Love,
Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker - Dance of
the Sugar-Plum Fairy, Brahms and others.
For a film with a blind protagonist, Strand
has been thoughtful to also include an
English-language descriptive audio track for
the visually-impaired. Since the director is
aware of the number of Spanish-speaking
people living in the United States, he
requested that the sales company allow the
inclusion of an optional Spanish subtitle
track for the film in addition to the
English track. My
Oppo
has identified
it as being a region 'A' disc.
Extras:
The behind the scene segment is not so much
informative as entertaining as the actors
goof off, discuss only half-seriously some
of their character's backgrounds (one
actress' running joke throughout the
featurette is actually a pointed observation
of her character's sole function within the
narrative), and demonstrate an easy-going
chemistry with one another off camera. The
deleted scenes are interspersed with
comments from director Daniel Ribeiro who
notes that he tries to be crystal clear with
every plot point of the story in the script
only to discover what was redundant in the
first rough cut. Most of what is on view
here are scene extensions - including one
bit that casts the overbearing mother with a
degree more depth - as well as a number of
additional scenes with the grandmother
character that are funny and sweet but
became less suited as the tone of the film
was refined.
Director Ribeiro, actors Lobo and Audi, and
producer Diana Almeida appear in an
English-language panel interview talk about
the origins of the project and how they
decided to do a short film version first to
explore the idea. It proved successful
enough at film festivals and on YouTube for
them to mount a feature. Ribeiro talks about
how films about the discovery of a
character's sexuality are usually about sex
and he wanted to do one that was more about
love (a film that he would have wanted to
watch as a teenager that provided a positive
message), while the actors mainly talk about
the energy and sense of collaboration on the
set. The aformentioned short version "I
Don't Want to Go Back Alone" features
the same central trio of actors with a
different supporting cast and locations.
Although the short version is even more
intimate in scope with a number of
differences, it cannot help but feel rather
abrupt in its plot developments after seeing
the main feature.
The extras are rounded out by the film's
theatrical trailer and trailers for four
other Strand titles.
Bottom line: I can see why The Way
he Looks is so lauded, even beyond its
gay niche audience. The parallels are not
heavy-handed and overplayed, although it is
often less literal as well. It is really a
sweet, compassionate story of maturity and
awareness. It was Brazil's submission for
the 2014 foreign-language Academy Award and
it had me thinking of
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
or, more aptly,
Blue Is the Warmest Color. This is a
beautiful film, visually and emotionally.
The Strand
Blu-ray
offers an impressive presentation and we
give a very strong recommendation. Great
film choice and BD production, Strand!
