Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Rental) (2001)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	123:31 (Case: 129)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (69:20)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Madden
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Nicolas Cage Penelope Cruz John Hurt Christian Bale
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	Rental	Music	Stephen Warbeck

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/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 English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, voice-over during opening credits

    In the beginning was a beautiful Greek island called Cephallonia. This small island has felt the force of history far out of proportion to its size. The section of history that we are interested in starts with World War Two and in particular the Italian occupation of the island and then their replacement by German troops. I was going to place a small section here about the true history of the island but this unfortunately would be a spoiler for the story. Suffice it to say that the major events portrayed did take place, but only the really major ones.

    Louis de Berniéres wrote a novel using these events as a background to what is basically a love story, Corelli's Mandolin. The book tells the story of a simple country doctor with a beautiful daughter that live on the island. We follow their story and the story of the islanders through a turbulent period of history. I watched this film with someone that has read the book, and they told me that there are some quite major differences between the book and the film. Once again I cannot outline these as they would be revealing far too much of the story.

    Next comes the movie based on the book. Cephallonia is invaded again, this time by the producers of the film. I believe there was some concern over this as the events depicted are still sharp in the memory of many of the inhabitants.

    Penélope Cruz plays Pelagia, the daughter of a simple but very wise country doctor (John Hurt). She falls in love with a simple Greek fisherman called Mandras (Christian Bale) and is engaged to be married. History intervenes with the Italian invasion and Mandras goes off to fight in the war. With the German's help, the Italians are victorious and occupy Cephallonia. Commanding one of the Italian field batteries is Captain Corelli (Nicolas Cage). He is billeted with the doctor and meets Pelagia. Whilst Mandras is away at war, he does not contact Pelagia at all, even though she writes a hundred letters to him. This leaves her wondering what is going on just as the enigmatic Captain arrives on the scene. Captain Corelli plays the mandolin and sings. In fact, his whole regiment sings and dances. As portrayed, they ingratiate themselves with the local population.

    Pelagia and our Captain fall in love, but this island is not a good place to start a relationship. There are many things happening on the island and in the world at large. The Italians on the mainland are defeated and surrender. The Germans, not trusting the Italians, move their own troops onto the island with the intention of disarming the Italians. While the Italians have been friendly, the Germans are brutal. At the same time, Mandras returns, still in love with Pelagia, and joins the resistance.

    The Italians are now caught between the Greeks and the Germans. The Greeks want help and weapons to use against the Germans, the Germans want the Italians to surrender and to lock up their weapons for safekeeping. The stage is now set. Will the Italians help the Greeks? Will Pelagia chose Mandras or the dashing Captain? Will they all survive the turmoil swirling around them?

    I found this film interesting. It does start slowly, but gathers momentum. The most interesting character for me was the father and doctor played by John Hurt. He gives a brilliant, riveting performance. Unfortunately, things go a little downhill from here. Cruz, Bale and Cage turn in good performances but not great ones. Accents vary a little, not only between characters but the characters themselves sometimes drift.

    There are moments of comedy, a love story and some quite shocking and brutal war scenes. This makes me wonder a little about the target audience of this movie. Someone looking for a love story may be shocked by the violence. Someone looking for a war story will be bored by the romance.

Video

    This is an excellent transfer overall.

    We are presented with a 16x9 enhanced 2.35:1 transfer. This appears to be the correct aspect ratio.

    The transfer is pretty sharp throughout. Shadow detail is good and there is no low level noise.

    There are some lovely colours in this transfer. The scenery around the island is beautiful and this transfer captures it well. There is no chroma noise.

    There are some very minor artefacts visible when the camera pans over something with a lot of fine detail, such as the rocks that are in the background of some scenes or more clearly when the pan is vertical and across a horizontal line. This can be seen at 107:09 on the roof line of the building. You probably won't notice these unless you are watching this on a large screen. Other than this there are no noticeable MPEG artefacts. There is very little grain and the film master was in excellent condition with only very minor flecks occasionally visible. Aliasing is very minor and there is no telecine wobble.

    There are two sets of subtitles, English and English for the Hearing Impaired. Both appear as white text on an inserted black box. The are easy to read and appear accurate.

    This is an RSDL disc with the layer change at 69:20. It occurs just at the end of a scene and while noticeable it was not too distracting.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    I found this a good sound track with two small problems. The first was that the use of bass was a little inconsistent. To be fair, it could be that the frequencies chosen for the effects just happened to coincide with a room node on my system but sometimes a truck would go past in the film and the house would shake. At other times a bomb would go off and nothing would happen. This did not happen every time but enough to be noticeable.

    The second problem was the level of the mix in the surrounds. The music and any split effects were very well done, but any ambience effects, insects and birds in the forest were mixed at quite a low level. This caused these scenes to be a little front heavy.

    There is only a single Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    There were no problems with the dialogue, being easy to understand throughout. The audio sync was good.

    The music works very well with the script to draw you into the film. Both the romantic scenes and the war scenes were scored appropriately.

    The surrounds were used to good effect, particularly during the air raid scenes: overall sound usage was not too bad.

    The subwoofer received quite a lot of material, both redirected and from the LFE track. In one scene there is an old black powder cannon and accompanying this is one of the best examples of subwoofer use I have heard in ages. It made everyone in the room jump and sounded very real indeed. Those with a system capable of reproducing this are in for a real blast.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    I have never seen such a bare bones disc before, even for a rental. Even the menu is very simple with only two choices.

Menu

    The menu is presented at 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. There is no music and the background is a blue graphic with the word Miramax.

   The Region 1 version of this disc is graced with a DTS soundtrack in addition to the Dolby Digital effort, along with a director's commentary and a few other goodies. As this is the rental release we will have to wait to see the sell-through version to make any real comparison. I am sure though that those who rent this would have appreciated the addition of the DTS soundtrack.

    After a slow start this film does pick up and tell a reasonably engrossing story, although it is hard to become involved with the main characters due to a lack of depth. I found myself caring mostly about the father and one of the soldiers in the Captain's unit.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio is also good.

    A very bare bones rental disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall