Cirque Du Soleil Presents Quidam

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General		Extras
Category	Circus	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 3 Journey Of Man, 1.33:1 not 16:9 enh, DD 5.1 Dralion,  1.33:1 not 16:9 enh, DD 5.1 Dolby Digital City
Year Released	1999	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	90:06 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	David Mallet
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar Home Video	Starring	Cirque Du Soleil
Case	Brackley
RRP	$39.95	Music	Benoit Jutras

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 256Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    I went into this review basically knowing almost nothing about Cirque Du Soleil - other than they were a Circus based around human performers with a lot of theatrics thrown in for good measure. The closest I ever got to seeing them live was driving past the Big Top they had erected last year next to the Tennis Centre in Melbourne, and hearing the rave reviews they garnered whilst here in Melbourne.

    At its driest, Cirque Du Soleil Presents Quidam is a video of a live performance of their show in Amsterdam. This description really does not do this programme justice. A combination of new age theatrics, music, mime and stupendous acrobatics, Cirque Du Soleil Presents Quidam is a truly amazing experience. It starts off slowly enough, but builds and builds and becomes more and more amazing as each minute passes. Most of the acts will blow you away, but for me the most amazing act was the statue act - the sheer strength and control on show was unbelievable.

    David Mallet directed this video. He has been responsible for a number of great captures of live events, so I had high hopes for the transfer in this regard. However, I was a little disappointed in a few aspects of this video. In particular, there were too many close-ups when I wanted to see overview shots and the close-ups were too close in, decreasing the overall impact of some of the acts, at least in my opinion.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was mostly crisp and clear, though this varied considerably with the degree of stage lighting. When the stage was well lit, the transfer looked superb. When the stage was dimly lit, the transfer looked good. When the camera looked directly into the stage lighting, the transfer flared. Early on in the transfer, the very stark stage lighting came across as washing out the colour of the image, which appears to have been the artistic intent of the opening of the show. Shadow detail was limited to what the lighting designer for this show wanted you to see. There was no low level noise.

    The colours are wildly variant through this transfer as part of the design of the show, from washed-out at the beginning to vibrant and extremely vivid to bordering on the oversaturated. Check out 33:49 - 34:01 for an amazing riot of colour. The only problem with this transfer, and one that got quite annoying after a while, was the chroma noise in the blues of the transfer. Most of the show is heavily blue-lit for the first 30 minutes, and the majority of shots suffered to a greater or lesser extent with chroma noise making the blues look quite unpleasant and distracting. This disappeared after the 30 minute mark as more colours were used in the show's lighting schema, but they resurfaced from time to time. This aspect of the transfer was really the only disappointing aspect of the entire transfer.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. There was some minor aliasing of the overhead gantry, but nothing that you would particularly take note of. Occasional shots were marred by a little camera wobble, but nothing that was particularly bad. There were no other video artefacts.

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this DVD; French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded and French Dolby Digital 5.1. The default soundtrack is the 2.0 surround soundtrack rather than the 5.1 soundtrack, which is a minor annoyance. I listened to the 5.1 soundtrack.

    There was fundamentally no dialogue as such, the entire show being accompanied by music. Some of the songs had vocals associated with them in French, and they all sounded clear. It would have been nice to have English subtitles to accompany these songs, though live audiences of course would not have this little bonus. There were no audio sync problems.

    The score by Benoit Jutras varies considerably, from ambient new age to rock and roll. Because of the nature of the show, pretty much every move in the show is choreographed precisely to the music, so it perfectly suits the acts on display. I very much enjoyed the music and was frequently tempted to crank it up.

    The surround channels simply carried music ambience, with most of the music carried in the front soundstage. Whilst not a particularly aggressive 5.1 mix, there was certainly nothing wrong with it.

    The subwoofer supported the music almost continuously, and was nicely integrated into the overall soundtrack.

Menu

Dolby Digital City Trailer

Trailers

• Production Notes
• English subtitle track (amongst others)

    The video quality is generally good, and only marred by some chroma noise in some of the blue-lit scenes.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (my bio)
7th April 2000