Day and Night (Tag und Nacht) (2011)

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General		Extras
Category	Erotic Drama	Featurette-Making Of Trailer-30 trailers, including Day and Night
Rating
Year Of Production	2011
Running Time	96:41
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Sabine Derflinger
Studio Distributor	Accent Film Entertainment	Starring	Anna Rot Magdalena Kronschläger Philipp Hochmair Martina Spitzer Adrian Topol Manuel Rubey Ana Stefanovic Wolfgang S. Zechmayer Martin Brambach Alexander El Dib Christian Strasser
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Gilbert Handler Petra Zöpnek

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes, frequently
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Childhood friends and country girls Lea (Anna Rot) and Hanna (Magdalena Kronschlager) are students in Vienna sharing a flat. To make some money they decide to sign up with an escort agency run by Mario (Philipp Hochmair), agreeing that when one of them wants to quit, they both will. Lea is a slim, self-confident brunette, Hanna a buxom blonde who is less sure of herself. At the university Hanna becomes friendly with fellow student Harald (Adrian Topol) while Lea occasionally sees her old boyfriend Claus (Manuel Ribey) when he is in Vienna. During the course of the film both Lea and Hanna learn a lot about the fantasies of men, and a bit about themselves, as they service a variety of clients and juggle their study and personal lives.

     Day and Night (Tag und Nacht) does not sensationalise its subject; it is not a thriller nor a condemnation of women who make a living as prostitutes, there is no dramatic last reel shootout or attack upon one of the women by a violent client that results in death, nor do the women came to a sudden realisation that what they are doing is morally reprehensible. Instead, in the hands of female director and co-writer Sabine Derflinger, Day and Night is more a slice of life, concentrating upon the relationship between these female best friends, a relationship that is gradually changed by working as part time prostitutes. Both are affected in different ways, as are their relationships with other people.

     Matching the matter of fact tone of the film are the two leads, Anna Rot and Magdalena Kronschlager, who give natural, believable performances, with their clothes on or off. Indeed, Day and Night includes full frontal male and female nudity plus some high level sex scenes, although the eroticism of the sexual activity is deliberately undermined by the reaction shots of the women; for them sex is a just a business and both leads neatly display a combination of boredom, amusement or resignation at the peculiarities of their various clients.

     Day and Night considers prostitution from a female perspective; it does not sensationalise the subject or make judgments about the choices taken by the two women, although it is less charitable to some of the male clients. However the film does show there is an impact upon the personal lives and relationships of the two friends. That matter of fact approach works very well, aided by the performances, and the ending is also low key, suggesting that different avenues will be taken by the two women.

Video

     Day and Night is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, the original ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced. The DVD cover incorrectly gives the aspect ratio of the DVD as 1.78:1.

     This is a natural looking print. It is generally sharp and with good detail. The colours are good, if muted, but when the film occasionally ventures into the autumn Austrian countryside the colours on the leaves are beautiful. Skin tones, and there is a lot of skin, are natural. Blacks are good and shadow detail fine, brightness and contract consistent.

     There is some minor ghosting with motion and slight aliasing plus digital noise reduction in a couple of the night scenes, but nothing too obvious or distracting. There are no marks evident.

     English subtitles are in an easy to read white font. They contained no obvious spelling and grammatical errors although at one place a punctuation mark was a square.

     The print was good.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
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Audio

     Audio is a German Dolby Digital 5.1 track at 384 Kbps.

     This is mainly a film of dialogue which is front oriented, clear and easy to understand. The surrounds burst into life during the club scene with music and crowd noise. Otherwise the surrounds did not have a lot of activity except some music and the odd ambient effect. The sub-woofer added some appropriate bass to the music in the club scene.

     This is a film with a lot of silences. The limited original score was augmented with classical music by Bach, Mendelsohn and Verdi. The score was effective and well represented in the audio mix.

    Lip synchronisation is fine.

     The audio track was good for the type of film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
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Surround Channel Use
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Trailers

     On start-up there were trailers for In Their Skin, Hello I Must Be Going, Four Assassins, The Wicked and Q, that collectively run 10:05. A total of 30 trailers of Accent Film Entertainment releases can be selected from the menu - some, but not all, of the start-up trailers are repeated - and we do get a trailer for Day and Night included. There is a “play all” option.

The Making Of Featurette (16:39)

     This is more than an EPK and included some on set footage and interviews with director Sabine Derflinger and cast Anna Rot, Magdalena Kronschlager, Philipp Hochmair and Manuel Rubey. There is some discussion about the subject matter, and the fact that it was a predominately a female crew. There is a bit of noticeable interlacing but the featurette is worth watching.

     There are currently no versions of Day and Night in either Region 1 US or Region 2 UK. There is a Region 2 German release that seems identical to our Australian Region All release. Buy local.

     Day and Night does not sensationalise its subject but is more a slice of life as two women learn a lot about the fantasies of men, and a bit about themselves. The matter of fact approach works very well, aided by the performances, and the ending is good, being consistent with what has gone before.

     The video and audio are fine. The making of is worth watching and there are a raft of trailers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall