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

ADDITION: Arrow Blu-ray (March 2020): Arrow have transferred Philip Ridley's The Passion of Darkly Noon to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New 2K restoration by Arrow Films from the original camera negative, approved by Philip Ridley". It has the same heavily rich and saturated appearance of Ridley's The Reflecting Skin. Green and reds can be intensely vibrant and the brightness comes close to flaring. This is an entirely intentional look - and I loved it. The visuals are frequently striking with constant depth and impressive detail but the colors and contrast intensity stand-out as the most impressive visual feature. Arrow transfer it to a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. Awesome.

NOTE: We have added 70 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Arrow offer the choice of a DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround track or a linear PCM 2.0 channel track (both 24-bit) in the original English language. There are obvious effects and a few notable separations but most remarkable is the beautifully expressive score by Nick Bicât (The Reflecting Skin) sounding wonderful, almost prosaic, in the lossless. As gorgeous as the video. NOTE: Arrow include the option of an isolated score track (LPCM stereo), including never-before-heard extended and unused cues, and the two songs from the film. Arrow offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Arrow Blu-ray offers a new audio commentary by writer/director Philip Ridley and he describes the 'other worldly' visual look he wanted to achieve at times (like 'Mars'), shot in the Black Forest of Germany, how impressed he was with Fraser and Judd (the latter a delicate performance), he talks about the colors of the film, especially yellow and its ambiguous relationship with the eye... he's passionate and enthusiastic in describing his film and it's artistic look, hidden themes, comparisons to his first film The Reflecting Skin and more. There are a lot of other supplements; American Dreams: Inside the Mind of Philip Ridley runs over 20-minutes and follows the artist/director's thirty year career, written and narrated by James Flower focusing on Philip Ridley's first two films and their unique place within his body of work. Eyes of Fire is a 22-minute interview with cinematographer John de Borman on achieving the desired look of the film. Sharp Cuts is a newly filmed, 1/4 hour, interview with editor Leslie Healey and Forest Songs, spends 20-minutes with composer Nick Bicât. Dreaming Darkly, is an archival featurette, produced by Soda Pictures for their 2015 release of The Reflecting Skin, and it has Philip Ridley, Viggo Mortensen and Nick Bicât discussing their collaboration on The Passion of Darkly Noon and subsequent projects. Arrow include three previously unreleased demos of the music score, written and performed by Bicât before filming started - together they run over 20-minutes. There is a theatrical trailer and extensive image gallery. The package has a reversible sleeve featuring new and original artwork and for the first pressing customers, they get an illustrated collector's booklet featuring a new Philip Ridley career retrospective written by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.

Wow, The Passion of Darkly Noon is an incredible film experience. Philip Ridley's fable-like narrative explodes being driven by the excitingly intense color palette and marvelously deep performances of Brendan Fraser, Ashley Judd and Grace Zabriskie. I enjoyed this even more than The Reflecting Skin and the Arrow Blu-ray is another complete, stacked package from them. A strong recommendation!

Gary Tooze