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officially teased on Twitter! this has a new 4K restoration playing at Berlin, no shocker who's releasing it

We officially confirm!
György Fehér’s masterpiece will make its world premiere on Blu-ray in a stunning new 4K restoration - coming April 2023

Incredible news! Can't wait.

The version of this I've seen for years now was a poor VHS rip (running at some 96 minutes) that's circulated the internet for some time now. I've noticed that, according to SR's site, this one is 101 minutes. Hopefully this fills in the strange cuts that made the version I've seen almost unwatchable. Very excited for this release.

The Fehér film I’m waiting for is his 1998 Passion (Szenvedély), based on The Postman Always Rings Twice. I saw it at the San Francisco International Film Festival on its initial release and have been wanting to see it again since.

Based on that, I’m definitely interested in catching Twilight.

hmcnaught wrote: Sat Feb 11, 2023 3:04 pm The version of this I've seen for years now was a poor VHS rip (running at some 96 minutes) that's circulated the internet for some time now. I've noticed that, according to SR's site, this one is 101 minutes. Hopefully this fills in the strange cuts that made the version I've seen almost unwatchable. Very excited for this release.

You might want to check the framerate of that VHS rip first - if it's 25fps, as is highly likely given that the source was presumably Hungarian (where they use the PAL video standard), a 96-minute running time would convert to 100 minutes at theatrical speed. And if that 96 minutes is rounded down, the theatrical speed could be nearer 101.

there's a lot of mystery in these extras and I'm excited to see what we get

• Twilight (Szürkület, 1990) presented from the new 4K restoration by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive, supervised and approved by cinematographer Miklós Gurbán.
• A series of new filmed appreciations by contemporary filmmakers on the influence and importance of Twilight.
• Booklet featuring an expansive new essay by filmmaker and curator Stanley Schtinter.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• World premiere on Blu-ray.
• Region free Blu-ray (A/B/C).
+ MORE TBA

cover art:

Spoiler

Now available for pre-order at Amazon UK and Diabolik

Now down to £17.99 pre-order at Amazon UK

I saw TWILIGHT last night at Lincoln Center's Gilman Theater, and would have enjoyed it so much more if the theater didn't have so much light pollution inside the theater. The screen was visibly washed out during the darker and pitch black night time scenes, with a yellowish cast coming from those damned floorlights. The corners and sides were visibly dimmed. Add to that audible rattling from the speaker system during the deeper bass elements in the soundtrack, and audible intrusions from the soundtrack in the adjoining cinema, and I won't be going back to that particular cinema -- the movie will undoubtedly look better on my TV, where I can make sure all the lights are out in my living room.

Delayed until June 12.

We felt it was worth delaying in order to get the new interviews with cinematographer Miklós Gurbán and editor Mária Czeilk - which we now have in the bag.

TWILIGHT full specs now confirmed:

• Presented from the new 4K restoration by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive, supervised and approved by cinematographer Miklós Gurbán.
• A series of exclusive newly filmed appreciations by filmmakers:
Quay Brothers
Peter Strickland
James Norton
and critic Chris Fujiwara.
• Newly filmed interviews with editor Mária Czeilik and cinematographer Miklós Gurbán.
• Booklet featuring an expansive new essay by filmmaker and curator Stanley Schtinter.
• Trailer.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• World premiere on Blu-ray.

Full details now at our website

“[Béla] Tarr fans will doubtless snap this up without any hesitation (and are very unlikely to be disappointed), but so should anyone else curious to sample the work of a clearly major talent who has been neglected for far too long.”
Michael Brooke reviews in the latest Sight and Sound Magazine

"Bravo to Second Run and their stacked Blu-ray. We give this a very strong recommendation!"
Beaver

Finally watched this last night, and I have to say the restoration work is beautiful. It's like a completely different film altogether now. Big fan of the appreciations too.

"Plays more like an existential horror film than a noir or police procedural [...]
Second Run’s new Blu-ray of György Fehér’s haunting, evocative TWILIGHT comes with a stunning 4K transfer and a slew of fascinating new interviews."
Slant Magazine

Received the disc today, and while the restoration is inherently beautiful, the encoding on this disc can unfortunately only be described as HORRENDOUS.

There is ample grain in the mid-tones and even some highlights, which comes across in many shots as already way too clumpy - well below par. But as soon as one looks into the (ample) shadows, grain is not only almost completely absent, but it's full of massive compression artifacts everywhere!

It's so unwatchable on a large-screen OLED that I think this warrants a replacement program.

Two quite representative examples (please open image in a new tab to see the full resolution drama):

Had heard this elsewhere and am sad but appreciative to see it confirmed. Here's hoping the Arbelos is a vast improvement.

I bailed on the film halfway through but I noticed the artifacts too, especially in the shot following the inspector down the long staircase. But presumably the UK disc is worth holding on to for the extras considering the caliber of the interviewees they got to talk about the film.

The Arbelos BD of Son of the White Mare was encoded by Fidelity in Motion; I don't know if David handled their Bela Tarr titles though.

Finch wrote: Tue Jun 27, 2023 2:42 amThe Arbelos BD of Son of the White Mare was encoded by Fidelity in Motion; I don't know if David handled their Bela Tarr titles though.

The Bela Tarr titles were indeed done by FiM and they look spectacular, especially considering how difficult it must be to encode the grainy images. Encoding partially aside, they're some of the best looking black and white 1080 blu-ray discs I've seen. They look very filmic.

I've been regularly feedbacking Second Sight that they need to either challenge their encoding house or switch altogether, but yeah, this one's really bad. I'm not sure if grain has been managed like Eclair have done on some restorations, ie keeping it in brighter portions of the frame but removing it from darker ones, but in any cases, this disc is struggling in pretty much every way it could, from compression breaking down in cycles (1 good frame, 2 bad ones, 1 good again), banding issues, blockiness in the darker areas to having issues in some moving shots and making the grain sticking like a forcefield.

It's definitely not a matter of disc space allocation (like with the Kevin Jerome Everson, which should have been ideally 3 BD-50 rather than 2) since it has a maxed out bitrate (35 Mbps AVB), it's clearly down to how Silversun are setting it up in details (like, for starters, not having the most constant bitrate ever).

It however doesn't help that the restoration seemed to have black level never falling below 7, meaning you get stuck with grey-ish blacks that are a pain to properly encode.