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I hope i did not cause any troubles asking why Criterion has not re-release Rublev...all the responses could be the reason for the delay and maybe soon they will get the rights and a good print to use. This reminds me of Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala which Criterion release on laserdisc years ago. I have most of the dvd's out there and they all look poor with the Kino looking the best while the Ruscico having a distracting shimmering issue. Did read that the original negative is in very poor shape!

i saw MosFilm released Andrei Rublev's bluray.Can i get more info about this release.i thought criterion owns this


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kemalettin wrote:i saw MosFilm released Andrei Rublev's bluray.Can i get more info about this release.i thought criterion owns this

Mosfilm owns the film outright (they made it in the first place!) - Criterion merely licenses the North Anerican distribution rights from them.

A comparison of the new bluray to the existing DVD editions of "Andrei Rublev", including Criterion's on a Russian web site: http://vobzor.com/page.php?id=575" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Beautiful. Of course, the challenge now is to integrate that with the material from the uncensored print, as I said before.

Nothing wrote:Beautiful. Of course, the challenge now is to integrate that with the material from the uncensored print, as I said before.

Supposedly the film's cinematographer, Vadim Yusov digitally restored the "original version" of the film, though I've been unable to find more concrete details about it. (See earlier in this thread.) This may or may not be the same as the "Passion According to Andrei" version on the Criterion DVD, but in all probability it's different from the standard 185-minute version on this Blu-ray.

Is this new Russian Blu-ray compatible with Region A or B players?

That Krupny Plan DVD sure looks awful good too....

jsteffe wrote:

Nothing wrote:Beautiful. Of course, the challenge now is to integrate that with the material from the uncensored print, as I said before.

Supposedly the film's cinematographer, Vadim Yusov digitally restored the "original version" of the film, though I've been unable to find more concrete details about it. (See earlier in this thread.) This may or may not be the same as the "Passion According to Andrei" version on the Criterion DVD, but in all probability it's different from the standard 185-minute version on this Blu-ray.

Is this new Russian Blu-ray compatible with Region A or B players?

This Blu-ray is indeed the standard '185-minute' version. It's just in 24fps now so the length (1:24:49 + 1:38:09 = 3:02:58) is 4% different from the PAL length (1:21:04 + 1:33:20 = 2:54:24) due to 24/25fps conversion.

The supposed '185-minute' is just a mis-labeled length (on 2001 Russian DVD) that doesn't even exist.

Apparently this Blu-ray underwent digital restoration which fixed many problems on the 2001 DVD transfer.

Can anyone recommend a dvd-shop in St. Petersburg, Russia, where I could buy the new Mosfilm blu-ray of Andrei? Thanks!

Hi all,

I found a Russian vendor that should ship Andrei Rublev to the USA:

http://www.kniga.ru/dvd/595811

I used Google Translate and created an account. Kniga.ru has three shipping options for international orders: Ground (2-3 weeks), Airmail (14 days) and EMS (Express Mail Service) (7 days). EMS, however costs 2088 RUR/71 USD so I chose Airmail, which is only 163 RUR/6 USD.

The total with Airmail to the USA was about 21.00 USD.

I had a tough time getting the payment processor (secure-assist.ru) web page to show up in Firefox, and I had to re-do the order about four times, creating four different orders in the process. but once I got in, the payment was verified (I was brave and used a Visa card), and it has even showed up unflagged on my online banking statement. I only paid for the one order, and I got an e-mail confirmation confirming that, so hopefully the other three will be removed from my Order History on Kniga.ru.

I have never ordered from anywhere in Russia before, and I have no idea what to expect from this transaction, so please realize that you order at your own risk.

muddycrutchboy, have you received your Rublev Blu-ray yet?

jmj713 wrote:muddycrutchboy, have you received your Rublev Blu-ray yet?

Yes!

My copy arrived Thursday. though because it required a signature, I missed the delivery and it was redelivered today. Using Russian Airmail, it took 17 days from placing the order (4/26) to receiving the package in the USA. It does seem that Kniga.ru source items they ship, so your item may take a couple of days to arrive to them before they pack it an ship it.

The shrink-wrapped Blu-ray came bubble-wrapped and inside a cardboard packing sleeve which itself was wrapped with tape, and the whole thing was inside a Russian Post "bag" style package which was entirely sealed and showed no evidence of customs tampering.

Kniga.ru did not provide any sort of tracking and as far as their site knows, this item is still with the Russian Post. When I inquired as to the status of the item, I did receive a brief, seemingly translated response in English on one occasion, which seemed to state that they were waiting for the Russian Post to provide a tracking number, but by and large, do not expect Kniga.ru to be able to assist you with orders in English.

muddycrutchboy wrote:

jmj713 wrote:muddycrutchboy, have you received your Rublev Blu-ray yet?

Yes!

My copy arrived Thursday. though because it required a signature, I missed the delivery and it was redelivered today. Using Russian Airmail, it took 17 days from placing the order (4/26) to receiving the package in the USA. It does seem that Kniga.ru source items they ship, so your item may take a couple of days to arrive to them before they pack it an ship it.

The shrink-wrapped Blu-ray came bubble-wrapped and inside a cardboard packing sleeve which itself was wrapped with tape, and the whole thing was inside a Russian Post "bag" style package which was entirely sealed and showed no evidence of customs tampering.

Kniga.ru did not provide any sort of tracking and as far as their site knows, this item is still with the Russian Post. When I inquired as to the status of the item, I did receive a brief, seemingly translated response in English on one occasion, which seemed to state that they were waiting for the Russian Post to provide a tracking number, but by and large, do not expect Kniga.ru to be able to assist you with orders in English.

More importantly - how does the transfer look? I've been waiting to hear before placing my order.

The new Mosfilm blu-ray transfer is amazing.

Didn't someone just email Criterion and they replied that they don't have any Tarkovsky films in development for Blu Ray?

I just noticed this has english subs...

aox wrote:Didn't someone just email Criterion and they replied that they don't have any Tarkovsky films in development for Blu Ray?

Yes, they did. I think the issue with the Mosfilm version is supposed to be that it's missing certain portions of the film, or perhaps it's not the preferred cut, so it doesn't necessarily surprise me that Criterion is no closer to reissuing the film.

I just placed my order and it was a pain in the ass getting the order placed.

I'll report back once it has arrived.

[quote=""membrillo""]More importantly - how does the transfer look? I've been waiting to hear before placing my order.[/quote]

JabbaTheSlut wrote:The new Mosfilm blu-ray transfer is amazing.

Indeed it is. Well worth the $21 total you will pay to get it to the U.S.

I made an in-depth review, here as McCrutchy (no screenshots, sorry):

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Andrei-Ru ... ews/10957/

This has been covered in great depth on this forum many years ago, but just to recap briefly:

The Russian DVD releases of ANDREI RUBLEV feature a compeltely different cut of the film to the version that was hidden under the editor's bed which Scorsese smuggled out of Russia to be eventually released by Criterion.

Scenes are in a different order, some scenes are missing, some scenes feature completely different takes, the score differs greatly across the two versions. They're very different cuts.

It's widely regarded that the Criterion cut is closer to Tarkovsky's vision (for a number of reasons which came up during the indepth comparison of both versions which took place on this forum years ago).

I've seen this new Russian Blu-ray advertised as "the director's cut", which is really misleading.

With the Criterion DVD being a non-anamorphic port of their LD, it would be a gigantic gift to the world if Criterion could do a new HD transfer of the print they issued on DVD.

Why they seem reticent to do it is probably a combination of two things: the desire to release an ultimate set with both cuts, and the financial investment on such with little expectation of return. Until then, having at least one of the cuts on Blu is valuable, so I'm considering picking the thing up. Crit has been really forthcoming on Facebook about upcoming projects, and their outright dismissal of any Tarkovsky on the horizon is beyond disappointing. Don't they own the Scorsese cut?

FWIW, the most recent official line we have from Criterion is (from Facebook, 10/7/09):

This is very complicated and from a film materials perspective, it's proving to be even more difficult now than it was 15 years ago when we were working on the original laserdisc...

also, FWIW, the Russian 'cut' is absolutely fascinating, and not to be dismissed out of hand.

peerpee wrote:also, FWIW, the Russian 'cut' is absolutely fascinating, and not to be dismissed out of hand.

Yes, absolutely - in fact, it's still my preferred version, though this is probably skewed by the fact that I've seen it in 35mm many times whereas my only chance to see the older 'The Passion of Andrei' version has been via the less than wonderful letterboxed NTSC Criterion edition.

But it's almost certainly the case that whatever the reasons underlying some of the cuts made, Tarkovsky also took advantage of the delay to improve on the editing elsewhere. For instance, I much prefer the way that the prologue flows in the later cut.

I ordered from Kinga too, the biggest problem was finding how they list Britain in the shipping options...
It is strange that an English friendly disc is so hard to find, now that Ozon stopped shipping abroad.