Come and See R2

[Cinéslob]

Nouveaux Pictures have announced the UK DVD release of Come and See for 24th April 2006 priced at £19.99. After eight years of building up a prestigious DVD catalogue containing some of the finest examples of World Cinema ever produced – including such titles as La Dolce Vita, Hiroshima Mon Amour and The Tin Drum – Nouveaux Pictures is proud to announce the first ever UK DVD release of its biggest title to date, Elem Klimov's award-winning World War II epic, COME AND SEE.

The winner of both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Golden Prize at the 1985 Moscow International Film Festival, and hailed by Empire Of The Sun author J. G. Ballard as "the greatest war film ever made" and by Academy Award winning actor Sean Penn as "a masterpiece not only of filmmaking but of humanity itself," the film's unavailability on DVD in the UK has given COME AND SEE the status of "lost masterpiece". Now, this spellbinding film is being released as a double-disc DVD, digitally remastered from a restored print and featuring a host of Special Features including brand new interviews with director Elem Klimov, lead actor Alexei Kravchenko and production designer Victor Petrov.

Features

Disc One
Feature presentation in dual language format (Russian 5.1 with English subtitles and English 5.1 dubbed version).

Disc Two
Preface by director Elem Klimov; interviews with star Alexei Kravchenko and production designer Victor Petrov; Chronicles 1 and 2 featuring archive newsreel footage; filmographies; photo album.

I hope that Nouveaux doesn't drop the ball with this one, although this sadly bears the signs of being a Rucisco port and nothing more.

[tryavna]

Those extras sound like the same ones as were on Ruscico's release, so it may be a port. But didn't Ruscico's also spread the movie over both discs? (Rather pointlessly, too, since the whole movie runs well under three hours.) If this company is releasing the movie on one disc and the extras on the other, then perhaps it's at least a new transfer....

[peerpee]

Ruscico won't license their films to anyone unless they use their DLTs (ie. the finished disc/extras/menus/encode).

Eureka/MoC really wanted to put out some of their films, but weren't prepared to use their finished DLTs.

[Cinéslob]

Ruscico won't license their films to anyone unless they use their DLTs (ie. the finished disc/extras/menus/encode).

Eureka/MoC really wanted to put out some of their films, but weren't prepared to use their finished DLTs.

There's shooting yourself in the foot, and there's tying a grenade to your foot and pulling out the pin...

That was aimed at Ruscico, by the by.

[AZAI]

Could anybody clear up the discussion on which version has what?

Is the Nouveaux version similar to the Rusico to the Spectrum Korean DVD reviewed here?

And what about the Kino release?

Kino is from 2001, Spectrum from 2002 and Nouveaux is putting quite some advertising towards the new digitally remaster from a restored print...couldn't they just have kept the extras and use a new master?

If it is not a new master, Nouveaux set the double disc thing straight and it looks like an okay release. As far as quality goes it looks forthwhile in the screencaps (the grimm colours are probably intentional), and there are no specific notes on bad quality by the reviewer. The Kino-release however is thrashed on Digtally obsessed.

Can somebody please illuminate this?

[loplop]

There's a small review on the Nouveaux Pictures DVD in the latest edition of Sight and Sound. Doesn't mention whether or not it's newly mastered though.
In relation to the previous post, the 2 VHS copies i have had (recorded from television) did have "grim colours" and i feel that was intentional. There's also an interesting use of sound during a fair chunk of the film.

One of my favourite ever films, and for several years i only had it on an old VHS recording from Channel 4 (UK) , missing the first ten minutes or so.
It was one of those films whereby you'd see the beginning and then rush to find a blank tape, screaming i must record this, and losing another five minutes frantically trying to unwrap the sellophane.
One of the most disturbing and yet beautiful films of all time, in my mind.

[bunuelian]

Agreed, loplop, it's a great and mesmerizing film from the very beginning. I'm hard pressed to think of a more powerful opening sequence than watching him joyously pull the rifle from the earth. The Russian experience in World War II deserves much more attention than it gets in the West and this film certainly deserves as wide an audience as possible. One of the greatest Russian films, and that's saying a lot (even though I'm actually incapable of saying anything at all useful about film).

Did the S&S review make any remarks about the DVD's quality? This is one of the few films I'd double dip for if I thought I'd be getting something substantially better than the Kino version.

[loplop]

bunuelian, it simply said "this is an impressive 2-disc set", not mentioning the image quality specifically. It also hammered the ending, which i too have always thought mars the film, but after what's gone on previously i can forgive Emil Klimov anything !
The film is completely hypnotic, one of those you simply cannot switch off once it's rolling. Ah, those woods.

[bunuelian]

Thanks, loplop.

There's a trailer here:

http://comeandseemovie.com/

To my eye, it looks a lot sharper than the Kino, which reeks of PAL-to-NTSC conversion. Hopefully the 5.1 mix isn't a terrible bastardization of the original, as is Ruscico's habit, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[HerrSchreck]

Some of the smoothest steadicam work on the face of the earth, so smooth, operators body so in tune with his apparatus that some of the long tracking shots through the woods actually feel the same "levelness" as though the camera were on some invisible dolly-- very few operators can simulate this lack of bobble despite the "shock" system of counterbalance on the rig. Kubrick was one of the few others that duplicated this, as in the hedge maze in SHINING.

[filmfan]

Members,

I have a Region 1, 2 dvd set from Kino (?).

Am I missing anything with the Region 2 release.

It is an incredible film experience...I was speechless after the viewing.

Thanks, Mike

[bunuelian]

Mike,
For one thing you're missing having the entire film on one disc, which the second Kino release at least fixed (albeit by getting rid of some extra features, if I'm not mistaken). The main cause for interest in the R2 release is the potential for improved video quality based on some assumptions about Kino's method of transfering the film to disc. Once the R2 version is out I'm sure there will be reviews and comparisons online in short order.

[loplop]

My copy arrived on Friday, but i left it at my brother's place at the weekend (he's a huge fan of this masterpiece too), and we didn't get the chance to sit down and watch the film.
So, apologies,i can't comment on the picture quality as yet. By the way, there's no booklet or in fact anything included, which is fine by me as the film itself will suffice !

[Scharphedin2]

Anything new on this front? Has anyone had the chance to view the Nouveaux disc? Anyone in a position to compare with the previous editions?

[HerrSchreck]

On this (great) Dutch forum someone made a comparison using the Beaver caps: http://cinemavanti.nl/viewtopic.php?t=147

That's bizarre. Of course desperately wanting this marvel I bought the Kino when it came out, and thought the image breathtakingly corrupted by improper conversion. It's this haze that hangs over the color & sharpness that makes you nuts like there's this cellophane barrier between yourself & the film that you can't break thru.

Looking at those caps the contrast & color & haziness looks exactly like the Kino. Same look as the Rasputin AGONIYA/ Of course during horizontal pans the ghosting will calm down a bit.

[Barmy]

Even new 35mm prints of "Come and See" are a bit hazy, with muted colors. Ditto "Farewell". "Agony" on the other hand has a bright/intense color scheme.

[HerrSchreck]

I have the films in question, not talking about the cinematographers color palette. I'm talking about a phenomenon that either keeps coming up in the transfers or resident in the source stock that makes it look like a transluscent piece of something is unattractively coming between the veiwer and the film, regardless of the colors onscreen. Looks more like some bizarro analog artifact. Very much dulls the beautiful palette in AGONIYA as well as COME AND SEE.

[Barmy]

Maybe we are talking about different things, but both "Come and See" and "Farewell" are, I assume, intentionally filmed to look hazy (like a piece of cellophane is on the camera lens). Sokurovian, one might say.

[Daze73]

I'm thinking about getting this release but noticed it only contains a 5.1 mix. I was wondering if this is one of the usual horrible Ruscico mixes or a decent mix of the original. And is there a good quality release of this movie available anywhere with the original mono?

[accatone]

More than 10 years later, what is the go to disc in R2 land for 2018/2019? Just watched a very bad german DVD yesterday. I can live with bad image quality if its because of the actual film stock used. But the image was matted to 16:9 which seriously cuts off relevant informations. Artistically cropping is a sakrileg, no need to open a general discussion here.

[Calvin]

Criterion will be releasing it, probably best to hold off for that as I can't imagine it's too far away

[Robespierre]

I said that two years ago when it was on filmstruck (which doesn't necessarily mean a physical release is imminent). It seems like a sure thing for this title, but I'm not sure how soon is "soon" considering it takes CC sometimes a long time to get stuff out (through no fault of their own, of course, they just have a lot in the pipeline). I'm equally impatient waiting for this particular title.

[Big Ben]

I said that two years ago when it was on filmstruck (which doesn't necessarily mean a physical release is imminent). It seems like a sure thing for this title, but I'm not sure how soon is "soon" considering it takes CC sometimes a long time to get stuff out (through no fault of their own, of course, they just have a lot in the pipeline). I'm equally impatient waiting for this particular title.

Janus has tweeted about it this year (In April) but they haven't announced anything formal. I imagine that a brief tour will be done before a Criterion puts there version out. I'm unsure about the state of the materials though and how that would correlate with restoration time, special features etc.

[Calvin]

Mosfilm premiered a restoration at Venice in 2017 that won Best Restored Film. I doubt Criterion will need to do another.

[eerik]

And that restoration has been on Mosfilm's Youtube channel for some time now.