Jindabyne (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-The Process Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	118:47 (Case: 123)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (78:30)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ray Lawrence
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Laura Linney Gabriel Byrne Chris Haywood Deborra-Lee Furness John Howard Leah Purcell Eva Lazzaro Sean Rees-Wemyss Alice Garner Simon Stone
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$32.95	Music	Paul Kelly Dan Luscombe

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Ray Lawrence has now extended his directorial career to three features over 20 years, starting with Bliss in 1985, following that with the excellent Lantana in 2001 and now adding Jindabyne to his resume. All three are high quality and critically respected films. There are certainly a lot of excellent elements to this new film, however to my mind it is not up to the extremely high standard set by Lantana which would be hard for anyone to follow. I cannot specifically point to many things which could be held up in evidence of this view, however I felt the story was not as compelling in this film and I was a little disappointed by the ending.

    The plot here is based upon a short story, 'So Much Water, So Close to Home' by Raymond Carver, an American writer. According to interviews on the disc, Ray Lawrence became aware of the story through the Paul Kelly song 'Everything's Turning to White', which was a hit for him and is also based on that story. The song was certainly my first introduction to this story. Lawrence contacted Paul Kelly to ask him about the source of the story which lead him to the short story by Carver. It was then adapted for this film (and transplanted to Jindabyne as a location) by Beatrix Christian .

    This plot concerns the story of four men who live in the New South Wales country town on Jindabyne, which is located near the skiing areas. The men decide to go on a fishing trip for a weekend, up in the wilderness where they must hike a considerable distance to reach their preferred fishing spot. Shortly after arriving, one of the men finds the dead body of a young aboriginal girl floating in the river. It is obvious she has been murdered. As they have just arrived and one of the party has injured his ankle they decide to stay and continue fishing rather than hike back and report the body immediately. This decision has wide-reaching impacts on the men, their friendship, families and the broader community. The main characters are

• Stewart Kane (Gabriel Byrne) - An Irishman living in Jindabyne, who owns a service station. He is married to Claire and their marriage is not overly happy. Their reactions to the results of the fishing trip are in some ways driven by their history rather than the act itself. Stuart is one of the four men on the fishing trip.
• Claire Kane (Laura Linney ) - An American woman married to Stewart. They have one son. Stewart & Claire's relationship is the main focus of the film, although not the only focus.
• Carl (John Howard ) - Runs a local motel with his wife, Jude. They have the care of their grand-daughter, Cayln-Calandria. Another of the four men on the fishing trip.
• Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis ) - The third man on the fishing trip. His girlfriend is Carmel.
• Carmel (Leah Purcell ) - A local school teacher. She is an aboriginal woman.
• Billy (Simon Stone ) - The fourth man on the fishing trip. He works for Stewart at the service station.

    Other important supporting roles include Max Cullen as Terry, who is Claire's boss at the local chemist, Chris Haywood as G.W. Park, a local electrician, and Charles 'Bud' Tingwell as the local priest.

    The acting is universally excellent which is added to by the haunting atmosphere, beautiful scenery and visuals and the wonderful score by Paul Kelly and Dan Luscombe. As is usual for this director, natural lighting is used throughout. The story is told in a very subtle but powerful way. It is hard to discuss this any further without spoiling the surprises that are included in the film.

    Overall, this is a very good example of Australian filmmaking which is unfortunate enough to have to follow the director's previous masterpiece, Lantana which invites the inevitable comparisons. Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is quite good but not spectacular.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced, which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was reasonably sharp and clear but could not be referred to as crisp. There was no evidence of low level noise. Sharpness was affected by some light grain throughout, which was heavier in some parts, such as at 2:00. The natural lighting resulted in shadow detail being fine but not spectacular.

    The colour was excellent, well representing the beautiful but somewhat bleak scenery around Jindabyne outside of the snowy season.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired, which are well placed to make use of the gap between 2.35:1 and 1.78:1. Accordingly they rarely impact on the picture itself. They are also positioned towards the person speaking on screen.

    The layer change occurs at 78:30 and was not noticeable during playback.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is very good but hardly a home cinema show-off title. Obviously, this has more to do with the nature of the film than the quality of the transfer.

    This DVD contains two audio options; an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand, however some lines of dialogue were a little indistinct. There was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this movie by Paul Kelly and Dan Luscombe is excellent, adding significantly to the haunting feel of the film. The actual Paul Kelly song which inspired the film is not used in it's original guise.

    The surround speakers were used for atmosphere and immersion rather than specific effects, although there were occasional, mild uses such as static.

     The subwoofer was used sparingly to add bass to the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included an intro and music which makes it an atmospheric beginning to the film experience.

Jindabyne - The Process (30:18)

    A making of featurette which is well done and worthy of your time. Interviews are included with the cast & crew, along with Paul Kelly. It covers topics such as read-throughs and rehearsals, shooting, development, locations, lighting choices, editing, indigenous involvement and the music. One section made me squirm as they described how they got the fish to do what they wanted.

Deleted Scenes

    Three scenes are included, one of which is definitely worth a look. These are presented with 16x9 enhancement.

• Campfire (2:59) - Discussion about whether they should return immediately. I would have kept this one.
• Garage (2:04) - Carl & his granddaughter discuss her mother.
• Bathroom (1:17) - Stewart & Claire talk in the bathroom.

Trailer (2:02)

    A high quality, atmospheric trailer.

     I cannot find any evidence that this disc is available outside of Region 4 .

    The video quality is quite good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    A small selection of quality extras are included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall