presentation, but delivers a dif- ferent version of the movie. For unknown reasons, Anthony and his partners decided to digitally alter portions of the picture by removing the color from parts of some sequences and empha- sizing it in others. Dubbed “Noir 3D,” the alterations—aside from making a flashback sequence B&W—are not applied with much rhyme or reason. Further- more, these changes (seemingly inspired by CGI-heavy graphic novel-inspired pictures like SIN CITY) are less than technically adept, with very noticeable out- lines around objects that are ei- ther being drained of color or drenched in it. Noir 3D comes off merely as a cynical attempt to make the movie more appealing to younger audiences and does absolutely nothing to improve upon the original experience. The 3D montage at the end has been re-edited and com- pletely ruined by this digital non- sense with new end credits that concentrate solely on the techni- cians involved in the revamp (in fairness, the print used for the Rhino release also lacked an end crawl). This version also runs about 4m shorter than the Film- ways print Rhino used. The full flashback from the opening reel (which shows how the Tony An- thony and Victoria Abril charac- ters unsuccessfully tried to rob a bank), which has never been part of the US release, is also absent. There is an additional shot of Anthony on horseback at the very start not seen in the Filmways edition, but it is a bit that also appears at the 10:21 mark and is yet another pointless change. The quality here is naturally much better than the earlier ana- glyphic DVD presentation, but it’s depressing that Anthony and his partners went to the trouble and expense of doing a 4K scan only to muck around with the movie
in a manner that will likely satisfy almost no one. So, if you like COMIN’ AT YA!, it’s probably still worth getting the Blu-ray for the improved 3D video presentation, but prepare to be annoyed. A 2D presentation with the same alter- ations is also included and that is the only edition offered on the DVD.
Compared to GET MEAN, the supplements here are far more limited, consisting only of a promo for the Noir 3D edition and a flat trailer for that version. The Filmways coming attraction (which promoted the fun one could have with 3D despite not showing any of the movie) from the Rhino disc is not here.
HISTÒRIA DE LA MEVA MORT
(STORY OF MY DEATH) 2013, Second Sight,
144m 17s, £11.00, PAL DVD-0 By Kim Newman
In the late 18th century, an aging Giacomo Casanova (Vicenç Altaió) and his Sancho Panza- like manservant Pompeu (Lluís Serrat) depart Switzerland after a lengthy sojourn, during which the famous rake has tried to write his memoirs but been distracted by pleasures of the table, the bou- doir, and the chamberpot. On the next leg of a seemingly endless grand tour, the restless Venetian Casanova drags the slightly dis- approving French Pompeu to the Carpathians, where they put up with a dour, religious farmer (Xavier Pau) and his gaggle of daughters. The libertine naturally takes an interest in the women, though loitering nearby is a rival alpha male predator, Count Dracula (Eliseu Huertas). Oddly, it turns out that Pompeu has served both masters, and prefers the roving, emotional Casanova to the castle-dwelling, boring Dracula.
The premise of Història de la meva mort sounds as if it could make for a gruesome, comic romp like Paul Morrissey’s BLOOD FOR DRACULA or an exercise in archetype-mixing strangeness like Jésus Franco’s Dracula-related films, but Catalan writer-director Albert Serra, prime exponent of “slow cin- ema,” takes a very different ap- proach to the material. Serra, picking up from the mood of his Don Quixote adaptation Honor de Cavalleria (in which Serrat played Sancho), favors long takes on digital video, the use of non-professional actors, lengthy scenes of everyday ac- tivity, mostly enigmatic and el- liptical dialogue and poised tableaux. Consequently, this isn’t the Mr. Sex Meets Mr. Vio- lence film some might expect from the potent collision of metaphorical historical and lit- eral literary ladykillers. Casa- nova and Dracula don’t even meet until the finale, by which time night has fallen and it’s too dark to discern precisely what passes between them— and we tend to see both these incarnations of male desire from the point of view of ser- vants and victims as absurd, impotent and doomed if not entirely unsympathetic.
Here, Casanova is a pow- dered, tittering coprophile given to moments of private hilarity or despair, who strains over his own heroic bowel movements and delves under a maid’s skirts to prize an anus “like a rosary of bon-bons” while encouraging her to defecate in his mouth (a scene presented with Peter Strickland- like tact), breaks a window with his head during the film’s single conventional seduction (which is hardly more unnerving than the childish laughter that accompa- nies his amorous thrusts), and is manifestly slipping into a fantasy
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