Just last night I took a regular trip over to the Criterion Collection website and noticed a couple of new Blu-ray release dates had been added as well as a few DVD dates. Most notable of the bunch was that the 1955 Henri-Georges Clouzot classic The Wages of Fear was getting a brand new Blu-ray treatment and released on April 21. I actually just watched this film for the first time about three weeks ago and was absolutely floored as I believe it has one of the best film endings I have ever seen. If you think the end of All Quiet on the Western Front is good (which I do) just wait if you have not seen this flick and on Blu-ray it is a must buy.
The film takes place in the poor South American oil town of Las Piedras where money is scarce as the American oil company Southern Oil treats the locals as second-class citizens ensuring the town will never be able to dig out of extreme poverty. So, when the opportunity arises to earn $2,000 each, four men are asked to shuttle two trucks filled with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain and jungle route where even the slightest bump could cause the entire truck to explode. The film is a story of exploitation and is extremely thrilling. Even more interesting is how almost 50 minutes of it were cut when it was first released in the U.S. which meant a lot of the politics of the story were pretty much non-existent. This, however, is the complete 147 minute cut and the featurette on the cuts made to the film for the U.S. release should be interesting as I only own the feature-less version included in the Janus Box Set.
The release comes with the following features:
- Restored high-definition digital transfer with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Video interviews with assistant director Michel Romanoff and Henri-Georges Clouzot biographer Marc Godin
- Interview with Yves Montand from 1988
- Henri-Georges Clouzot: The Enlightened Tyrant, a 2004 documentary on the director’s career
- Censored, an analysis of cuts made to the film for its 1955 U.S. release
- PLUS: An booklet featuring an essay by novelist Dennis Lehane
None of the features are any different from the previously released two-disc Criterion set outside of the improved Blu-ray picture and the uncompressed monaural soundtrack.
Also coming to Criterion Blu-ray in April will be In the Realm of the Senses, which also debuts on DVD on April 28. This is a film by Nagisa Oshima that I had never heard of, but the description from Criterion certainly makes it sound like it holds its own special place in film history:
Still censored in its own country, In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida), by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, remains one of the most controversial films of all time. A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual desire, Oshima’s film, set in 1936 and based on a true incident, depicts a man and a woman (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) consumed by a transcendent, destructive love while living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone.
You can get more on that release right here.
