Tragic Ceremony

One of the horror movies Camille Keaton made during a sojourn to Italy in the seventies prior to attaining infamy with I Spit on Your Grave, Tragic Ceremony (1972) was also one of Riccardo Freda's last films as director.  I always hope that there is renewed interest in Freda's work, a fresh light cast on him as a film-maker to be savioured in the same way that Fulci and Bava might be.  As it stands only a handful of his films have made their way to disc for posterity and present fans to cherish, and a couple I think desperately need to be restored before they vanish forever (if they haven't already).  Tragic Ceremony itself is marginally clumsy at times but with enough going for it to make it an enjoyable, fairly unique viewing experience.

A group of teens are lazing about, generally having a good time thanks to one of them being quite well off before his time (Bill, played by Euro-horror regular Tony Isbert, the Spanish equivalent of James Franco).  Their ebullience is cut short when the jeep gives up the ghost during a stormy night.  They find refuge in an isolated mansion, with reluctant acceptance and little hospitality from their hosts.  Jane (Keaton), however, seems to receive superior treatment for reasons unknown, and she herself develops an uncanny affinity for the place and situation.  While the rest of the group grow increasingly bored cooped up in one room, she goes wandering in the dark, rainy night through the passages of the house, only to become the unwilling - or perhaps destined - participant in a black mass sacrifice that's already underway.  Before the ritual is carried through to logical conclusion, the rest of the group discover what's going on.  Unwittingly they become the catalyst for a bloodbath, as one bloody killing leads to another before their very eyes.  Somehow surviving the massacre the traumatised group head back to Bill's rich dwelling, only to be turned away from there.  It's not long before the mass murder is formally discovered and the police are fumbling through to figure out what happened.

Tragic Ceremony has some great moments and a slight supernatural undertone.  The black mass is a near-surreal nightmare preceded by Keaton fetchingly wandering around the mansion with flimsy attire and candlesticks, much as Barbara Steele might have in the decade before.  It also culminates in the aforementioned massacre, quite a scene as one kill triggers another.  The only complaint here is that either Freda or the editor decide to replay certain shots later in the film to ridiculous excess, thereby diminishing them of their power somewhat.  On route, the film delivers some trademarks of Italian gothic horror, a genre Freda had been involved with before on a number of occasions.  Here it collides - as it often did in the early seventies - with the contemporary, almost as if the horror baton was being handed on between the decades to suit a changing audience.  I think Keaton was brilliant in these European films, her facial expressions alluding to much more going on underneath combined with her very much being an appealing presence generally.  It must be stated that Tragic Ceremony is not all it could have been.  However, with its surreal edge and at times nightmarish logic ever present, over the years I've not grown tired of rewatching it, something that I cannot say for much that spews forth from identity-politics obsessed Hollywood this century.

The film was released by Dark Sky Films on DVD about 2008, and more recently by the incredible Vinegar Syndrome on Blu-ray.  They both present the same cut of the film (running a few seconds longer on Blu only because of the presence of VS's iconic ident at the end), albeit with revised subtitles on the later edition.  Amusingly the incredibly cumbersome onscreen Italian title is translated as is on the Dark Sky disc (roughly speaking to Extract from the Secret Archives of the Police of a European Capital), whereas the same title on the VS is simply translated as 'Tragic Ceremony'... Aspect ratio is 1.78:1 on each disc, perhaps a smidgeon more information being visible on the VS.  Italian language-only (I'm not sure if there is an English dub) audio quality is at a higher bitrate on the VS Blu, although it is limited to the standards of the time and thus the viewer would be hard pushed to notice much difference I think.  The picture quality itself is where the Blu-ray excels, being significantly cleaner and more detailed.  The DVD was reasonably good for its time but is put to bed here without much doubt.  The Blu-ray contains an audio commentary and picture gallery (of Keaton) that the DVD does not, while they both contain the same 13 minute interview with Keaton herself.  The DVD does have a trailer that the Blu-ray is missing for some reason; I wouldn't say this is a huge loss.  In terms of region locking, the DVD is fixed to region 1, whereas the Blu-ray covers all regions.  Finally the VS disc (at least the edition in the first run Camille Keaton in Italy boxed set that it came in) thoughtfully has a reversible cover adorned with appealing art on both sides.  Overall the 2K restoration (reportedly of the 35mm negative) performed by VS is superb, the best edition available, and preserves the film the way it should be for generations to come.

Vivarium

Society's leaders, whoever they may be, have laid before you an established, very well walked - or crawled - path, and they would recommend you to take it (there's surprisingly little in way of alternative options anyway): grow up whilst acquiring an education (i.e. the world is the way we are telling you it is), leave school and get even more educated, find a partner, find a job, find a house, settle into it, produce offspring, die.  There are a few extras, such as discover new ways to despise your fellow human beings (a neat little distraction and focal point for your energy) and assimilate as much as the media can feed you.  The point of all this is unclear; perhaps there was a point to your existence but it has been lost in the shaping of your essentially predetermined life by others who remain unknown to you.

If I may be as bold, I will make a recommendation contrary to the above: do not, if at all possible, follow the established path.  Particularly if you are male.  If you do find a partner, no matter how perfect she may be, do not if you can avoid it cohabitate, especially do not get married, and if nothing else: never, ever, EVER impregnate someone.  Your life will be over, even if you don't realise it at that point, and you will have satisfied the purpose laid down before you by those unknown others.  Tricked into a marital existence where your finances and freedom will be forever compromised while you are drained very gradually of your soul.  And once you have produced the offspring so begged of you, so acclaimed as normal behaviour, anything that was ever unique about you or your potential will be eliminated over time, and that offspring will replace you.  You will become redundant, and figuratively or literally - it really won't matter to the world - dead.  Your leaders won't have to dig your grave for you, you will voluntarily do it yourself.

This paragraph doesn't contain spoilers as such, but Vivarium is best viewed to my mind without knowing too much about it.  A young couple are perusing the housing market for their new nest, the perfect place to conventionally exist and bring up the child that does not yet exist in their lives.  They discover an estate agent selling homes on what appears to be a newly rooted development, some drive away.  A strange man to be selling property, the couple reluctantly drive along with him to take a cursory look at the place, more out of politeness or persuasion than any real volition.  Once in the bland estate, devoid of people, where all of the new houses look pretty much alike, they wander around the intended sale without too much of a spark going off.  Then the estate agent departs without warning.  They decide to do the same, realising it to be perplexingly impossible to find their way back out of the estate.  Eventually their car runs out of fuel right outside the very house they didn't want in the first place, so they're forced to stay the night.  The next day, or days, they desperately try to get out of the town but cannot locate the exit, nor any other people.  Eventually they resign to accepting they are trapped.  At which point a child is delivered to them, the promise of freedom written in the box should they manage to raise the child.  At this point their troubles really fire up.

Taking a blend of horror and science fiction as its genre base, 2019's Vivarium (directed by Lorcan Finnegan) is really a grim social satire which I see as a commentary on the life you are quite likely to lead, a story that - if you see through its metaphors - is also likely to scare the bejesus out of you.  The bland estate and its identical houses, a place full of nobody, a 'job' of sorts that Tom goes to each day that is largely fruitless and ultimately self-destructive, deteriorating relationships, and a child that is frankly one of the scariest children ever put on screen.  If you were half considering children before watching this film, you will - wisely in my opinion - decide against it afterwards!  All of this is delivered with a heavy dose of surrealism and no attempt to pretend that the world Tom and Gemma find themselves is remotely real.  Sort of like your own world really.  If you want conventional narrative - that thing that you think applies to your life - you've come to the wrong place with this film.

I think the project itself could have taken a stronger path but the ideas themselves combined with the enslaved plight of the ordinary couple grab your interest and really keep it ensnared throughout the running time.  If I had to pick issues it would primarily be in Jesse Eisenberg, who I think is miscast and not capable of delivering the raw emotional disintegration that would have made his character's hell much more poignant.  British-born Imogen Poots (you might recognise her from 28 Weeks Later) as Gemma does a better job of displaying her suffering.  And whoever that kid is, well, I never want to run into him in my nightmares!  The other approach I would have taken is to grant the world slightly more verisimilitude, but not completely.  I get that the filmmakers wanted this to look unreal, I personally think it would have hit the mark harder if it resembled what appears to be reality just a little more closely (i.e. as it is, many people might simply see this as a surreal science fiction rather than a distorted mirror designed, possibly, to aid awakening).  Still, they are minor gripes and overall this Danish sourced production is a very impactful one, and one that kept me thinking for days afterwards.  There's not too much in modern cinema that manages that.

In terms of purchasing, annoyingly the British distributors have chosen to put this out of DVD only at time of writing.  I would suggest not supporting such decisions and go for an overseas Blu-ray, either from the US or if you want a reasonably priced option, Germany.  The film did play on Film 4 recently, which is of course a convenient way to check it out first.

Singles

Singles (1992) is without a doubt one of Cameron Crowe's best films, and one of my personal favourites.  Not too much of a plot going on to speak of, it follows a group of twenty-somethings around (and believe me, back then twenty-somethings were way less obnoxious, entitled, and self-obsessed than they generally are today!) as they navigate their relationships and blossoming lives (before it all goes to Hell, some time around your forties...).  Janet - Bridget Fonda, wonderful here - is questioning her relationship with rocker Cliff (Matt Dillon, again absolutely brilliant) while Campbell Scott is apparently finding the love of his life in Linda - is it on or off? - and perpetual singleton Debbie is going through a dating agency to see what or who works (not helped by her flatmate Pam, who's quite happy to steal Debbie's latest find from right under her nose).  You get the idea.  It's all set to a Seattle backdrop with the then-popular grunge scene forming many parts of the soundtrack.  With a couple of lovely cameos (Tim Burton shows up as 'the next Martin Scorsese'), it's a beautiful film that I never get tired of rewatching every few years.  The music track is excellent, the writing spot on, the characters played universally convincingly, and the story just, well, nice.  There's not too much nice in the world today, so it's even more welcome now than back in the 90s.

I've had this one over the years on tape, DVD, and Blu-ray.  I was a tad disappointed when it appeared on Blu-ray because it didn't look like Warner had put in a whole heap of effort that this one should deserve.  However, the newer disc is actually pretty decent and a world better than its standard definition, and lower, predecessors.  Both the DVD and Blu-ray are framed at 1.78:1, although the former does reveal slightly more information around the sides.  The image didn't initially look to me like it had been bestowed with a full-blown remaster, but looking at the two discs side by side it's obvious that the Blu-ray is significantly sharper, bolder, and more colourful.  Audio is stereo on both discs, losslessly compressed with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu of course, so it's a winner here too.  It goes without saying that the Blu-ray also plays at the correct frame rate (the PAL DVD is sped slightly at 25 frames per second).

Extras were slim on the DVD: you got a theatrical trailer and a couple of three minute deleted scenes.  On the Blu there is the trailer but you also get a few minutes of entertaining goofs, three full performances from the live gig that was shot for the film (Alice in Chains and Soundgarden), and a plethora of deleted scenes.  My only gripe here is that there is no Play-All function on the deleted scenes, so you have to keep clicking through the menu if you want to watch them all, which most people will - c'mon, Warner!  Still, I can't complain too much at the content even though a Crowe commentary or something would have been a massive bonus.  I picked up the German Blu-ray, which appears to be identical to the American Blu (even the menu is in English), the only difference being the Germans have put their usual, oddly large certification logo on the front cover.  Unusually, the cover is not reversible (to display it without the certificate), but considering it's much cheaper for us in England to import from Germany (for some reason it's not currently available here) now than it is from the US, this huge '12' a minor point.  Overall, if you own Singles on DVD (or VHS or Laserdisc), it's most definitely worth upgrading to this Blu-ray.  If you've never seen the film itself before, I think you're missing out, go check it out!