Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This lovely Brazilian film is about the different roads a man's love life can take. It follows 3 separate possible lifelines. Each runs concurently in intercutting scenes, so you could be confused if you don't pay attention, especially as they all involve the same 2 main characters. The events branch off from one crucial moment in the young man's life - being stood-up by a date.
In one life he goes on to marry another woman and ends up in a loveless marriage. In another he remains a bachelor playboy still living with his mother after 15 years. In these first 2 scenarios, he meets again the girl who stood him up, after a span of 15 years and we get to see what happens. In the third scenario, he actually marries the girl who stood him up but then deserts her for a gay man. The girl (his wife) then tries to win him back. The different outcomes in the 3 storylines suggest that maybe there isn't that special "someone" out there; that our lives and our loves are just shaped by the chance circumstances we find ourselves in; that we can fall in love with other people just as easily as the ones we eventually end up with.
This film deserves 5 stars or more but this DVD is such a disappointment. I've never seen this in the theater but according to IMdB this movie was released in widescreen with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (very wide). This DVD however presents a fullscreen version. To convert such a widescreen image to fullscreen entails cropping out a lot of the picture from both edges of the frame. And I believe this was in fact Panned-&-Scanned (actually cutting up the image) and not an open-matte version because the compositions look positively cramped in some scenes. The opening credits are in fact letterboxed to about 1.66:1 so as not to cut off the credits.
My disappointment stems from the fact that this was released by TLA, and I had formed a good impression of TLA having just watched another DVD released by them, the Serbo-Croatian romance "Loving Glances", which had been given a beautiful anamorphic transfer in its original widescreen aspect ratio. So how did this release end up in fullscreen? That said, the picture quality, even in this fullscreen mutilation, judged in terms of color, sharpness and contrast is admirable.
Another complaint for this DVD is that the English subtitles are burned directly onto the print in bright yellow lettering and cannot be turned off. Granted, not many people understand Portuguese but then not many people understand Serbo-Croatian either, so why optional subtitles for one and not the other? Some people don't like ugly subtitles marring the screen. Especially when the English translations aren't all that good in the first place.
The last gripe is that the end credits are cut off halfway. This happens in both these films from TLA. This is especially bad because both films have lovely songs at the end that are rudely cut. I suppose TLA thinks it can treat its customers so shabbily because it's one of the few distributors to bring in foreign films. Sad.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Possible Loves (2008)
No comments:
Post a Comment