Face to Face

Fascinating Film, TERRIBLE DVD
My first review was deleted (Obviously at the request of someone from Olive Films) but since I am not one to give up easily, here it is again:
Face to Face is a fascinating (though difficult) film, OLIVE FILMS RELEASE OF "Face to Face" is DISGRACEFUL. Soft and faded, It looks like a VHS TRANSFER FROM THE 80's and the sound is simply awful. This is an important film. You can't take a print in terrible condition (like this one obviously was) and just throw it out onto DVD with no digital picture or sound restoration. I was an Associate Producer and Film to Tape transfer supervisor for Criterion in the early 90s and the first thing I did was scour every possible place on the planet for the best print. If Olive Films is going to license important and long unavailable films like "Face to Face" effectively making them unavailable to Criterion or ANYONE ELSE, they should at least put in the care, time and effort that the film deserves. I have been waiting for F2F for many years and...

A Note About the Olive DVD
I was very excited to see this film finally released on DVD, but was dismayed at so many negative reviews about the quality of the print. So, instead of purchasing the film for over $25 I was able to track down a library that lent me their copy and I am happy to report that the negative reviews are not entirely warranted.

I was led to believe the quality of the film was on par with some of the Alpha prints and all the copies of "Two Women" currently available on the market. The DVD of "Face to Face" is, of course, not on par with something Criterion would release (it's a shame they will not be able to produce this DVD now), but the quality is not bad. You can hear the dialogue clearly (there are a few quick moments that are not entirely distinguishable), but then again how many people will watch this without subtitles in the United States? No cracks or breaks in the audio track either. And there were only two moments that I noticed the subtitle was not in proper English,...

A bergman classic rescued from neglect
I fist saw this Bergman masterpiece at Madison,Wisconsin when it first came out. Bergman was still at the height of his powers (but did his powers ever diminish?)and this film gave ample evidence of why he is considered one of the greatest - if no THE greatest - filmmaker of all time. Liv Ullmann, at the height of her powers and beauty, gives a naked (in the psychological sense) peformance that earned her an Oscar nomination. Then the film vanished and although virtually every film Bergaman ever made is out on DVD, this is the first time FACE TO FACE has appeared. I had hoped the Criterion people would have got hold of this one and, perhaps, issued the original Swedish TV version along with the movie, as it did with FANNY AND ALEXANDER. This release will have to do. Hopefully, this will be the subtitled version and not the abysmal dubbed version.

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