969 Diamonds of the Night

[swo17]

Diamonds of the Night



With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Němec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, a hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Kučera and Miroslav Ondříček—two of Czechoslovak cinema's most influential cinematographers—Němec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the dizzying plight of consciousness lost in night and fog.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview from 2009 with director Jan Němec
• A Loaf of Bread, Němec's 1960 student thesis film, based on a short story by Arnošt Lustig
• Arnošt Lustig Through the Eyes of Jan Němec, a short documentary on Lustig from 1993
• New interview with film programmer Irena Kovarova
• New video essay on the film's stylistic influences by scholar James Quandt
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael Atkinson

[Glowingwabbit]

Oh great a film already getting a region free release!!!

[MichaelB]

It'll be the same 4K restoration as the one featured on the Second Run disc, and the supplements look more or less comparable in terms of content (there'll certainly be a hefty overlap even if the presentation is different), so I'd go for whichever's cheapest.

[TMDaines]

No buys.

[Gregory]

I'll probably opt for the Second Run alternative too, but I'm still happy this is getting a Criterion release. Němec getting a spine number (rather than just a film included in an Eclipse set) should raise his profile a bit and lead to more people checking out this amazing film. I don't believe there was ever any kind of North American release of it on DVD before this, though there was probably a prohibitively expensive Facets VHS eons ago. My introduction to it was the Czech DVD, in which it shared the disc with Forman's Konkurs, and of course some non-importers will be familiar with it from the career retrospective that toured several years back. I'm glad it's finally getting the releases it deserves.

[MichaelB]

I'm very happy to confirm that the 4K restoration looks amazing. I have seen the film in 35mm, but nearly three decades ago, and I suspect it wasn't in anything like as good physical condition.

As Gregory says, it's a truly astonishing film, although a real tragedy that political circumstances ended up silencing Němec for so long (he basically made nothing of any creative significance throughout the 1970s and 80s, and none of his post-1990 work had even the merest fraction of the impact of his three great Sixties films). But even if he'd been run over by a tank while shooting his famous Soviet invasion footage in August 1968, Diamonds of the Night and The Party and the Guests would put him up there among the immortals.

[FrauBlucher]

Beaver

[nitin]

Looks noticeably better than the Second Run in those shots.

[tenia]

Wouldn't say "noticeably better". It seems at best marginally better, and in such cases, I'd be wary of Gary's caps. From all I can see here, grain is slightly better restituted on the Criterion disc, but it seems slightly more contrasted (maybe even too much, possibly blowing up highlights), so it may just be a by-product of this more contrasted look.

[nitin]

It is Gary’s caps so with that caveat, it looks noticeably sharper to me and the Second Run in those shots some macroblocking in darker areas. But it could be Gary’s usual issues with caps of non US discs (eg Berlin Alexanderplatz)

[FrauBlucher]

bluray.com

[WrathOfAguirre]

Watched this last night, and, well, this one kind of blew me away. I'll certainly be revisiting it, and looking forward to going through the supplements. I appreciated the unclear moments of what I can't tell for sure are memories or fantasies, and I'm also not sure if

Spoiler

the two of them were really released at the end? Was them getting executed a thought one of them had, or was it another part of the unclear timeline of the film, showing their dead bodies prior to the final scene of them being let go (falsely, perhaps being toyed with)? Or, was their being freed just another fantasy?

Also:

Spoiler

The scene of the old men feasting in celebration of their capture was especially effective in that I found it enraging.

Plenty more about this I loved. I also get a sense Malick has taken inspiration from it, as I found myself recalling numerous scenes from his own filmography (shots of nature amidst the horror of wartime; sudden cutaways to memories or daydreams left unexplained). By the end of it, I felt myself wanting more, but I can't argue that the lean runtime was effective in its own right.

This is the first "Czech New Wave" film I've seen (AFAIK anyway), and now I'm hungry to explore more.

[Matt]

This is the first "Czech New Wave" film I've seen (AFAIK anyway), and now I'm hungry to explore more.

It was my #1 in our recent Czech/Slovak list. You could work your way through all 30 of those and still have a few dozen great films left to watch.

Sorry I can't answer your question, though. It's been a while since I've watched the film and I don't remember exactly what happens there.

[WrathOfAguirre]

It was my #1 in our recent Czech/Slovak list. You could work your way through all 30 of those and still have a few dozen great films left to watch.

Thanks! Sounds like quite a list; I’ll look it over and keep it in mind as a reference.