The Miracle (Il Miracolo) (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	94:32
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Edoardo Winspeare
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Carlo Bruni Stefania Casciaro Claudio D'Agostino Anna Ferruzzo
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.45:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This film is the fifth of eleven films in the Italian Film Festival 2004 box set. The films are very different and the only real link between them is that they were all made in Italy in the last couple of years. This one shares the second disc of the collection with Good Morning, Night.

    This time around we have an angsty and dramatic story of a young boy, Tonio, who despite his father's warning goes out riding on his bike and ends up in hospital after being run over by a car. The car, driven by a bitter and twisted young woman called Cinzia, drives off without giving him assistance, despite the protestations of her boyfriend. Tonio's father, Pietro, is an angry, stressed and bitter man who is having problems with his property development business. After Tonio wakes up in the hospital he seems to have developed special powers to perform miracles which enable him to save the life of an elderly patient in the hospital. His father refuses to believe that he has any gift at all but his mother sets up television interviews. Despite knowing that she drove off without helping him, Tonio develops an unlikely friendship with Cinzia who was deserted when she was young by her mother. The mother has now come back into her life. As the film develops, Tonio's abilities are tested by various means as people try to seek his help.

    I am sure this film is very worthy, however I found it slow, lacking in entertainment value and more than a little depressing. Technically, this film featured some nice cinematography.

    This is not the film from this box set that I would recommend you watch first or in a slightly depressed mood. People who enjoy this style of filmmaking may get more from this film than I did.

Video

    The video quality is poor despite being quite sharp.

    The feature is presented in a 2.50:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is close to the original aspect ratio listed on IMDB of 2.35:1.

    The picture was quite sharp and clear, with no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was poor. There was grain throughout.

    The colour was quite good although it seemed dull at the beginning - this may have been an artistic decision. There is some colour bleeding from light colours but this is not too bad.

    Artefacts are plentiful, especially aliasing which is constant throughout the running time - even the credits alias! Everything you can think of from water to books to jackets all get in on the act. This is probably the second worst transfer I have seen for aliasing after Exodus. This one slips ahead because the individual spots of aliasing are not quite as severe as they were on that film. There were also lots of jagged edges. There were also lots of film artefacts, telecine wobble in the credits and jumps at 18:30 and 59:01 which were a sort of sideways wobble. Basically, pretty bad from an artefacts perspective.

    There are burned-in subtitles in English which are clear and easy to read and mostly off the picture which is nice. Obviously the very skinny aspect ratio makes this possible.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is OK but quite flat and lifeless.

    This DVD contains an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue seemed clear and there was no problem with audio sync that my very limited knowledge of Italian allowed me to detect.

    The music is quite haunting in parts but doesn't stand out generally.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    None.

Menu

    The menu allows only for the selection of which movie to play.

    I cannot find any evidence of this film being available outside of Region 4.

    The video quality is poor despite being quite sharp.

    The audio quality is decent.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall