Polish Cinema on DVD

Discuss internationally-released DVDs and Blu-rays or other international DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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foe
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#601 Post by foe » Thu Apr 16, 2015 5:50 am

Telstar wrote:
Perkins Cobb wrote:While we're on the subject, I've been trying to round up the Telewizja Kino Polska box sets, some of which have become equally elusive. The three I can't lay my hands on are Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Aleksander Ford, and Agnieszka Holland. It looks like this PFFAmerica site may have the Holland (thanks!), but does anyone know where the other two could be found?
I've also been looking for the Królikiewicz set for some time with no luck. Haven't even seen a copy show up on ebay for ages.
So have I, to no avail unfortunately.
But I have just seen (yesterday) his latest one (--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA4g4TvdsdE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) conjured up after long hiatus (20years or so) and it blew my head off. It's a bomb! Totally subversive and formally avant-garde cinema. It should be winning prizes at international film festivals meanwhile it didn't get anything at the latest Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. what the f!

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MichaelB
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#602 Post by MichaelB » Mon Jun 22, 2015 6:44 am

I don't think a single Polish retail site mentions that the Polish BD of Joanna Kos-Krauze and the late Krzysztof Krauze's final collaboration Papusza has English subtitles (and indeed subtitles in Polish, Spanish and German too), but I'm very happy to confirm that it does.

This has some of the most gorgeous black-and-white cinematography that I've seen in recent years (see this HD trailer for evidence, so the BD is very definitely the way to go.

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GaryC
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#603 Post by GaryC » Mon Jun 22, 2015 3:20 pm

MichaelB wrote:I don't think a single Polish retail site mentions that the Polish BD of Joanna Kos-Krauze and the late Krzysztof Krauze's final collaboration Papusza has English subtitles (and indeed subtitles in Polish, Spanish and German too), but I'm very happy to confirm that it does.

This has some of the most gorgeous black-and-white cinematography that I've seen in recent years (see this HD trailer for evidence, so the BD is very definitely the way to go.
Oh definitely - especially as I watched it as an online screener on my PC monitor last year.

There's an article about this film's cinematography here - digitally-captured on the Red Epic, by the way.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#604 Post by djvaso » Thu Oct 29, 2015 2:50 pm

Henryk Sienkiewicz trilogy Pan Wolodyjowski (Colonel Wolodyjowski) (1969), Potop (The Deluge) (315 Minute Original Cut) (1974) & Potop Redivivus (185 Minute Director's Cut) (2014) and Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword) (1999) directed by Jerzy Hoffman will be released by DMMS as a boxset in November.
Image

Dekalog (The Decalogue) (1989) in November
Image

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Lowry_Sam
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#605 Post by Lowry_Sam » Fri Oct 30, 2015 2:01 am

Criterion's edition probably won't come out before Nov. of 2016, if there's English subs I just might have to scoop that one up too...... Maybe a shopping trip to Poland is in order once that third box is released.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#606 Post by bergelson » Fri Oct 30, 2015 3:47 am

Decalogue is an outstanding release. With "A Short Film About Killing" being released soon as part of the big Polish classics batch I can only wander what
is the status of "A Short Film About Love", my personal favorite.

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Lowry_Sam
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#607 Post by Lowry_Sam » Fri Oct 30, 2015 4:46 am

Looks like The Dekalog and The Jerzy Hoffman Trilogy will both have English subtitles. Amazon.de only lists Potop so far, not the box. Not clear what, if anything is included as extras, though @ 645 minutes, it's longer than any of the previous dvd box sets.

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MichaelB
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#608 Post by MichaelB » Fri Oct 30, 2015 5:12 am

Lowry_Sam wrote:Not clear what, if anything is included as extras, though @ 645 minutes, it's longer than any of the previous dvd box sets.
I suspect PAL speedup will be quite a significant factor here! And this applies to US DVDs as well, as I think the Hoffman titles are PAL-to-NTSC conversions.

Put it like this: PAL speedup alone would account for a nearly 26-minute discrepancy.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#609 Post by McCrutchy » Fri Oct 30, 2015 8:25 pm

MichaelB wrote:
Lowry_Sam wrote:Not clear what, if anything is included as extras, though @ 645 minutes, it's longer than any of the previous dvd box sets.
I suspect PAL speedup will be quite a significant factor here! And this applies to US DVDs as well, as I think the Hoffman titles are PAL-to-NTSC conversions.

Put it like this: PAL speedup alone would account for a nearly 26-minute discrepancy.
Well, if you consider that the extra, which appears to be this Polish TV documentary from 2005, apparently runs 81 minutes, then the whole thing makes more sense, because 645-81 = 564, which is a likely run time for the series proper at 25 fps. I'm more concerned about whether it will be in the 1.33:1 OAR.

And what I'm most concerned about--enough to try e-mailing DMMS--is that they seem to be putting the 316-minute version of The Deluge on one Blu-ray Disc, when it surely needs two discs, especially as it is meant to be seen in widescreen. I'm hoping I don't receive the standard "Blu-ray Discs can hold 6-7 hours of video with no problem" response, but I suspect that's where we're heading, and, since I don't think David MacKenzie or James White was at the helm for this one, I'm even more concerned.

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Lowry_Sam
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#610 Post by Lowry_Sam » Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:09 am

Actually, the 645 min. run time I quoted was for Dekalog. I was trying to work out how much of the extras from previous that includes. DVD Beaver lists the Polish WB box as 580 min., but clearly there's much more than that as each disc has at least 25 min of extras & disc 11 has 3 hours of material...so it looks like there won't be as much on the Polish 4 disc blu-ray box as on the Polish WB 11 disc set.....but if the extras that are included are subtitled, that would be an improvement & not sure that Criterion would advance that much in extras (outside of English subs) over the 11 disc box, but only time will tell.

McCrutchy
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#611 Post by McCrutchy » Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:35 pm

Lowry_Sam wrote:Actually, the 645 min. run time I quoted was for Dekalog.
That's what I was pointing out. :wink:

The PAL DVDs seem to run roughly 560 minutes, which makes sense, as that would put each episode at roughly 56 minutes. The quoted run time is 645 minutes, but the bonus feature appears to run 81 minutes (from what I can tell), so that would give us a running time of approximately 564 minutes for the series itself.

Again, all of this is based on run time estimates, which are notoriously fickle. In particular, though, I wouldn't trust the odd man out run times on DVD Beaver, because Gary might have been quoting the packaging. If you actually add up the run times of the episodes he listed on the Polish DVD, you get 561:28, not 580 minutes. The other two PAL DVDs also bear this time out. How and why the NTSC set got to 613 minutes is a mystery, but may simply be another typo, because 561 minutes at 60Hz should be about 585 minutes.

McCrutchy
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#612 Post by McCrutchy » Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:48 am

Now, as expected about The Deluge:

Me:
McCrutchy wrote:Hi there, I hope I can ask a question in English.

I have just seen your information about the Jerzy Hoffman Trylogia
Blu-ray Box, and I see it is listed as 4 Blu-rays. I see that POTOP
(1974) is included, running the full 316 minutes, and this is the film
I am most excited about. But, surely this film has been placed on two
Blu-ray Discs, due to its length, yes? I know it is technically
possible to put the whole film on one disc, but then I would be
concerned about compression issues, with that much content on the
disc.

In any event, a big thank you for putting this box set out!

Warm regards,
Response:
DMMS wrote:Thank you for your e-mail. We are happy to see so much interest in our TRYLOGIA box set.

Answering your question, POTOP has been placed on one Blu-Ray Disc called BD50 so you do not have to worry about any compression issues. It will be available to purchase only inside the TRYLOGIA box set, which we believe makes a great gift for upcoming Christmas.

I hope this helps

All the best,
So now, the praying begins...
Last edited by McCrutchy on Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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andyli
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Polish Cinema on DVD

#613 Post by andyli » Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:56 am

I like how they pretend to teach a consumer who is concerned with compression issues what a BD50 is.

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Lazertron
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#614 Post by Lazertron » Wed Nov 11, 2015 5:56 am

I wholeheartedly want to thank user "foe" publicly for sending me his spare Sąsiady DVD without asking anything for it. As I also do have some spares around and want to give something back, please check your PMs, foe.

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MichaelB
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#615 Post by MichaelB » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:05 pm

Beaver on Dekalog.

Sadly, his resounding thumbs down has been echoed by everyone else I know who has it.

Even aside from the encoding issues, the fact that it's been cropped to a completely ahistorical 16:9 makes me very glad that I didn't import it.

On the other hand, 25fps is correct, so I'm not sure why he's being picky about that.

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#616 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:09 pm

Wasn't this restored by the same people undertaking other major Polish restorations, including the fabulous looking Blind Chance? I only pray that this ridiculous cropping is the work of the distributor and that the original transfer is all that we expect, and that Criterion will release it properly.

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MichaelB
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#617 Post by MichaelB » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:20 pm

I can also confirm that the other recent TOR restoration, Borowczyk's Story of Sin, looks superb - at least as a 2K DCP; it hasn't been earmarked for video release anywhere yet.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#618 Post by criterion10 » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:24 pm

MichaelB wrote:I can also confirm that the other recent TOR restoration, Borowczyk's Story of Sin, looks superb - at least as a 2K DCP; it hasn't been earmarked for video release anywhere yet.
What's the rights situation for this one (meaning, is there a chance Arrow will try to release it?).

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#619 Post by MichaelB » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:25 pm

Enquiries have of course been made.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#620 Post by naersjoen » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:31 pm

I was just getting ready to post my own Dekalog screen captures. On a positive note, the colour timing resembles that of the Polish DVD release. Compression artefacts do exist (see the Dekalog 7 capture), but are only noticeable in stills as far as I can tell. The aspect ratio disqualifies this release though, and one can indeed only hope that the restoration maintains the original aspect ratio.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#621 Post by criterion10 » Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:32 pm

MichaelB wrote:Enquiries have of course been made.
Here's hoping. (And I'll add La Marge to this too -- assuming, of course, that Lionsgate will play ball.)

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#622 Post by criterionsnob » Sun Nov 15, 2015 6:16 pm

Beaver on The Decalogue TVP blu-ray.
"the much-anticipated TVP Blu-ray is a letdown. The Dekalog was shown on television, as a series, in the late 80's. There is no reason for it to be widescreen (1.78:1)"

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TMDaines
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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#623 Post by TMDaines » Mon Nov 16, 2015 6:12 am

Just a thought: I know Dekalog would have been originally broadcast as 4:3 and this is 16:9, but is this the act of travestying that people are making it out to be? I'm not suggesting that 16:9 is necessarily ideal, but is 4:3 perfect either? I'd be curious to know whether the whole piece was shot at a wider ratio and then cropped for 4:3 broadcasts? The two films extended from Dekalog episodes are both 1.66:1, for example. Were all the episodes not shot in such a manner, whereby they are composed for 1.66:1 but protected for 4:3? Was the final 4:3 version merely just produced in compliance with TV standards of the time, rather than being an artistic choice to be adhered to regardless of viewing conditions?

Or was it filmed in such a way that we can be certain that it was designed and shot solely for 4:3? I'm curious how we'd then have eight episodes in 4:3 and two more that function as both 1.66:1 and 4:3?

Maybe this is all common knowledge, but I thought I'd raise the question.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#624 Post by MichaelB » Mon Nov 16, 2015 6:52 am

Dekalog was commissioned by and made for Polish television. At the time, the notion that the series might be screened in cinemas in its entirety would have been utter fantasy - and in any case, 1.37:1 was still a recognised theatrical ratio back then in Poland.

Now it's certainly plausible - indeed likely - that the two feature-length films were consciously protected for 1.66:1 at the time of shooting, but what would have been the rationale for doing this elsewhere? Especially given that different cinematographers worked on each episode? And why would the film have been cropped for broadcast when 4:3 broadcast was not merely the primary but at the time of production the only intended medium? This makes no sense to me at all.

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Re: Polish Cinema on DVD

#625 Post by JabbaTheSlut » Mon Nov 16, 2015 7:17 am

This is a major fuck-up. Did Criterion hint releasing Dekalog or is it a rumour?

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