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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Genova (Palace Films Collection) (2008)

Genova (Palace Films Collection) (2008)

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Released 9-Mar-2010

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama Featurette-Making Of-Making Genova (20.54)
Featurette-Behind The Scenes-On Location in Italy (6.50)
Theatrical Trailer
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2008
Running Time 89:00
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Michael Winterbottom
Studio
Distributor

Madman Entertainment
Starring Laurence Coriat
Michael Winterbottom
Monica Bennati
Dante Ciari
Gherardo Crucitti
Hope Davis
Colin Firth
Alessandro Giuggioli
Demetri Goritsas
Kyle Griffin
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $34.95 Music Melissa Parmenter


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    It has been a tough couple of years on screen for British actor Colin Firth. Recently he scored a well deserved Oscar nomination for his performance as a gay college professor mourning the loss of his lover. Now, just released on DVD, is his earlier film Genova in which he plays a college professor mourning the loss of his wife and at the same time trying to keep his remaining family together.

    At the opening of Genova Marianne (Hope Davis) is driving their two children, 16 year old Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Hayley-Jardine), along a busy stretch of road in Chicago. Director Michael Winterbottom plays out the scene at length, allowing the sense of foreboding to become unbearable, before the accident occurs. Marianne is dead and the girls receive minor physical, but more serious emotional, injuries. The way Winterbottom shoots this scene is a template for the whole film which eschews plotting for a freewheeling, moody, observational type of drama.

     Six months later and father Joe (Colin Firth) takes a job in Genova/Genoa and transplants the girls to this foreign environment as a break from the reminders of their tragedy. Joe has a friend in town, a former friend/girlfriend from university days, Barbara (Catherine Keener), who helped him to get the job. She is sympathetic to Joe and the plight of his kids but clearly wants to rekindle their past. In catching Joe’s eye, however, she has a rival in one of Joe’s brash, free-thinking students.

    In the new city the girls apply their own coping mechanisms. Teen Kelly makes friends with the locals and gets a boyfriend, sneaking off to trysts with him in defiance of her father. She wants to grow up in a hurry. Meanwhile, young Mary can't let go of her mother’s influence and Marianne starts to pop up in her drawings and eventually all around her.

    One of the quotes on the DVD cover describes the film as : "An eerily effective supernatural chiller" which is just about as misleading as you could get. For this is no Antichrist or Don't Look Now; it is closer to the films of Atom Egoyan in its cool depiction of a family trying to stabilize itself. Winterbottom uses small cameras to get in and around the action and the film is best come to as an art-house drama rather than either a traditional meditation on grief or a heart-warming tale of resilience and rebirth.

    Genova uses every part of the ancient Italian city, from the beaches and churches to the favoured locale, dark narrow streets. Winterbottom consistently uses these confined environments and the original score to create the sense that something dreadful is about to happen, particularly when the reckless Kelly is a passenger in, or a pillion passenger on, vehicles driven by her stoned new boyfriend.

    Firth plays the grieving father well and is ably supported by another experienced actor in Keener. But this is the girl's film and the two play their roles to perfection. Hayley-Jardine in particular, best known for playing the daughter in Kill Bill 2, is genuinely affecting as the little girl struggling to get over her role in her mothers death.

     The film will have a limited audience but is worth checking out for fans of dramas that refuse to stick with genre conventions.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    Genova was filmed on Sony High Definition cameras. It was shown cinematically in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and that ratio has been preserved for the DVD release. It is 16x9 enhanced.

     In the special features Michael Winterbottom and cast talk about his unobtrusive filmmaking techniques. He likes to get in and around the actors, sometimes just following them down the street and at other times passively observing a long scene play out. The effect of this approach is that the film is frequently and deliberately imperfect. There is persistent lens flare, some scenes are noisier than others and some scenes shot indoors, particularly those after the funeral, are dark and murky. All this is a result of the on-the-fly filmmaking style but it could have been fixed up in post production. Instead we have a film that looks slightly raw like the emotions of the characters.

     The colours are fine and accurate. The flesh tones are also true to life.

    There are subtitles in English for the Hearing Impaired which give a good account of on-screen action. The Italian language scenes are subtitled when the director wants us to understand what is being said.

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

Audio

    Genova has an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack running at 448 Kb/s. There is also a 2.0 soundtrack for those without surround sound.

     Genova is something of a chamber piece with a small ensemble. The dialogue is often inconsequential and feels improvised. Characters sometimes speak in hushed tones and some of the dialogue is lost. Everything important can be heard. Audi sync is fine.

    The film makes no great demands of the subwoofer or surround sound capabilities of your home theatre. Having said that, the soundtrack does benefit from the ambience of noise and music that permeates the street scenes. This is a subtle surround track but still an interesting track.

    Original music is supplied by Melissa Parmenter. The score is dramatic and moody, acting as a strong undercurrent to the mood of the film.

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

Extras

There are two sizeable extras.

Making of Genova(20.54)

    This reasonably lengthy feature combines on-set footage with interviews with cast and crew. It is not a studio puff piece - there are no extracts from the movie. The director talks about his inspiration for the film and development of the script with Laurence Coriat, as well as the shooting process in which the film crew tried to make themselves as unobtrusive as possible to give a verite feel to the film. Colin Firth tells how professional and serious he found the shoot. The kids talk about their characters. Worth a watch.

On Location in Italy (6.50)

     This is more of a brief video diary but still interesting for those who like to see behind the scenes. Two scenes are included, a simple walk though the narrow alleys and a car crash scene towards the end of the film. The latter occurs alarmingly near other traffic!

Theatrical Trailer (2.27)

     A comprehensive trailer that includes all aspects of the film.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

  This film has not yet been released in Region 1. The Region 2 UK DVD seems to be the same but I cannot find any details as to extras. (UK readers help out!)

Summary

    Fans of off-beat drama will enjoy Genova but those who like their narratives and suspense to have a pay-off may find it frustrating. Michael Winterbottom frequently sets up a scene and follows it for an unbearably long time as we are convinced something terrible is about to happen. Then he cuts to the child back at home - safe and well.

     The look of the film is consistent with the cinematic presentation and there are no technical problems with the sound or vision.

     The extras are informative and interesting.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Trevor Darge (read my bio)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer BDP-LX70A Blu-ray Player, using HDMI output
DisplayPioneer PDP-5000EX. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationOnkyo TX-SR605
SpeakersJBL 5.1 Surround and Subwoofer

Other Reviews NONE