A Handful of Dust (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Charles Sturridge (Director) Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Anna Karenina, The Shooting Party, Tess,TheTrip To Bountiful
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	113:05 (Case: 118)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:17)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Charles Sturridge
Studio Distributor	Stagescreen Prods Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	James Wilby Kristin Scott Thomas Rupert Graves Anjelica Huston Judi Dench Alec Guinness Richard Beale Jackson Kyle Norman Lumsden Jeanne Watts Kate Percival Richard Leech Roger Milner
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	George Fenton

    Evelyn Waugh is an interesting novelist who I was first introduced to some years ago when I read The Loved One, a satirical story about Los Angeles written from an English perspective. Waugh is probably best known for Brideshead Revisited, which was made into a famous television series in the early 1980s. A Handful of Dust is based upon another of his novels, and made into this feature film in 1988. It was directed by Charles Sturridge who also directed some of Brideshead Revisited. It was also produced by Brideshead's producer, Derek Grainger. Unfortunately, despite a stellar cast it does not reach the heights of that excellent series but would still certainly be of interest to fans of Waugh and stories of England between the wars.

    The story is set in the 1930s and involves a young aristocrat, Tony Last (James Wilby), a decent but fairly boring man and his wife, Lady Brenda (Kristen Scott-Thomas very early in her career). They live in his ancestral country home and she is becoming bored with the country and him. A young socialite, John Beaver (Rupert Graves) is invited for the weekend and she finds him attractive. At the suggestion of Beaver's mother (Judi Dench), Lady Brenda decides to take a flat in London, splitting her time between London and the family home. She starts an affair with Beaver and starts spending more and more time in London, away from her husband and young son. Finally, a tragedy ends what had become a sham marriage and Tony agrees to stage infidelity so that she may get a divorce from him. Depressed and alone, Tony decides to go off for an adventure in South America with an incompetent explorer. When their guides run off and the explorer drowns, Tony is left sick and alone until rescued by a jungle dwelling eccentric, Mr Todd (Alec Guinness, although the case gives the impression he plays the explorer). The film follows the fate of Tony & Brenda. Angelica Houston and Stephen Fry also appear in cameo roles.

    This film is interesting and I believe quite true to the novel (although I haven't read it), however the first half seems to drag and it is not until the divorce that the film really caught my attention. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for costume design.

    One to investigate for fans of the author or Brideshead Revisited, however not of too much interest to other audiences.

Video

    The video quality is disappointing.

    The feature is presented in a 1.59:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which may be the original aspect ratio. I can find no information about how this film was presented theatrically and the Region 1 DVD is in a very similar aspect ratio. The case says it is 1.85:1 but this is not even close.

    The picture was quite soft throughout. There was no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was average. There was light grain throughout.

    The colour was dull and fairly lifeless although this may have been by artistic choice. Skin tones were quite pale.

    Artefacts were present but not overly intrusive. There was some aliasing such as on railway tracks at 25:50, the clock tower at 47:05, a dress at 71:55 and the floor at 75:26. There were a few film artefacts such as a black spot at 57:55 and others occasionally. There were also some lines at 109:40. A reel change marker showed up at 97:58.

    There are no subtitles.

    The layer change occurs at 65:17 causing a slight pause.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is decent.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s. Both sound virtually mono.

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand, however some lines were muffled and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by George Fenton is quite good however is sometimes distorted.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used to any great effect despite the encoding.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu included music and the ability to select scenes and audio.

Commentary - Director/Co-writer Charles Sturridge

    Quite an informative commentary without being earth shattering. He covers development of the project, the novel, his reasoning behind the opening sequence, locations, set design, casting, financing, general issues with adapting Waugh, insurance, editing, shooting and other worthwhile topics. Certainly of interest to fans of the film or Evelyn Waugh.

Theatrical Trailer

    Decent quality trailer.

Umbrella Trailers

    Trailers for Anna Karenina, The Shooting Party, Tess & The Trip to Bountiful.

    This film has been released in Region 1 with some small differences as follows:

    Region 4 misses out on;

• Nothing 

    On this basis the Region 4 is the clear winner as the Region 1 version seems to have similar video issues.

    The video quality is disappointing.

    The audio quality is decent.

    The disc has a small selection of decent quality extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall