ADDITION: Cinema Guild - Region FREE - Blu-ray September 15': I’m very pleased that Cinema Guild released this masterpiece on Blu-ray. The disc is dual layered occupying 44,41 GB of space. It’s a North American release, but my copy (not a screener) plays on region ”B” players.

I compared side by side on a projector both the UK DVD and this Blu-ray disc. The Blu-ray is a huge step in picture and sound quality. The greenish outlook is now more natural. There are still some big issues. The Blu-ray transfer has still heavy edge enhancement in some scenes. I have an overall feeling that the Blu-ray disc is over manipulated, maybe due the lack of better source material. The image looks more like it was was shot on digital media, than on film stock. The disc have a strong feeling that it’s electronically sharpened, and many scenes have lost ”the touch of film”, like someone had screwed up to much information also in the dark scenes.

However, this film is a masterpiece, and this is the best way to watch it, even with the faults. An absolute film to own. Even in this way it’s one off the years best Blu-ray releases. Thanks' CINEMA GUILD!

The DTS-HD 2.0 sound is much more impressive than the sound on the DVD.

There’s on the extra material two long documents. First we have a Press Conference from the the 59th Berlin film festival (51 minutes). It’s only for masochist. It’s from a live TV broadcast. You know: First someone is fixing the microphones (4 min), then there is a question from a German reporter. The interpreter translates in English one third of the question, then Farhadi answers the question in Farsi. The interpreter is silent a long time, and finally translates one third of the answer. And this goes one for 51 minutes. Even tough there’s some informative answers, everything could have been cut down to ten minutes, and with proper English subtitles.

The second extra is documentary of Farhadi’s film A SEPARATION. It’s a documentary for a big audience. It’s about the huge success of A SEPARATION, and feelings among Iranian people about the film.

There’s also the films trailer, and some trailers of Cinema Guilds repertoire.

Highly recommended, even though the disc and the extras have room for improvement.

***

ON THE DVD:  Axiom Films (UK) brings Asghar Farhadi’s ABOUT ELLY in a dual layered PAL DVD occupying 5.47 GB of space, and coded for region 2.

I thank Axiom Films for bringing this masterpiece to an English friendly DVD. An opportune that shouldn’t been missed! The film is in line with Asghar Farhadi’s A SEPARATION, and THE PAST. For an audience’s that want to see the best of modern cinema.

Having a film of these quality, you easily forgive the mild weakness of the transfer. There’s a lot of scratches on the film negative, that is there and you can’t do anything to remove it, but the overall expose has a strong digital layer, and that’s not film grain. There's occasionally heavy edge enhancement, and the black’s are blocked in some scenes. But as I early stated, if the choice is to take it, or leave it, I strongly advice to take it.

The Dolby Digital 3.1 probably sounds like the original sound, I didn’t spot any faults in it!

The short, but informative interview with the director should be seen after the film, as the film is built like a thriller, it revolves to much details in the drama!

A strong advice is to pick up this film!


The film was viewed on a 2m (6,5 feet) screen. Projector EPSON TW 9000W (European serial number). Blu-ray SONY BDP-4100 or Pioneer BDP-170 (region free). The amplifier is a Pioneer VSX-922.

  - Per-Olof Strandberg

Axiom Films

Region 2 - PAL