argonaut69

C.R.A.Z.Y. was my favorite film of 2005, the year that Crash and Brokeback Mountain dominated the Academy Awards. C.R.A.Z.Y. never received a proper theatrical release in the U.S. and was not nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, in fact it was only when a subsidiary of Netflix picked up the title that it got a belated release on DVD. In it's native Canada however the film was a huge success, outselling big Hollywood blockbusters that year and sweeping the Genie Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars) later on.

It's most definitely a feel-good audience pleaser despite some darker moments and I have a hard time imagining anyone not liking it. The story concerns a French Canadian/Catholic family living in the Quebec suburbs in the 1970's and centers primarily on one of the son's, Zachary. His coming to terms with being gay is the plot thread that runs through the film but it also covers many years and many characters through the years, Christmas, weddings, births, deaths. The title of the film comes from the first initials of the family's 5 brothers as well as the Patsy Cline tune Crazy that the father is obsessed with. With Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane and David Bowie it's amazing that the films soundtrack never got a separate release. It's terrific.

I will note a technical oddity I experienced with this Canadian import disc. Two blu-ray players were unable to access the French subtitles but then they worked fine when played on a PS3. Don't know how to explain it but just a heads up. Needless to say, the regular DVD's look muddy compared to the sharpness of this blu-ray HD transfer.

This film has consistently been voted as the greatest Canadian film ever made in various critics polls over the years. Revered New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael hailed it as a small masterpiece upon original release but it is the sort of slow, intimate, character-based drama that has never achieved the sort of wide appeal (outside of Canada) that more plot focused films have. Watching some of the supplementary material on the Criterion Collection disc, it is also clear that there are many cultural references in the film that will mean more to a Canadian (particularly a French Canadian) than to other viewers.

The film meanders amiably along, capturing in unhurried pace the life of rural 1940's Quebec, in this case an asbestos mining town. The main characters are Benoit, an orphaned boy, the local undertaker Antoine and his assistant Fernand played by the director himself Claude Jutra. Eventually the film reaches its big set-piece, a long, extended night sequence where Benoit and Antoine (covered in furs) must traverse the icy, snow covered landscape via sled to retrieve the body of a boy who has died at a farmhouse.

The director was hailed as the new savior of Canadian cinema at the time of release, but unfortunately never achieved the level of success later on that he did with this film. He mysteriously disappeared one winter and his body was discovered the following spring after the ice had thawed...a simple note attached, "My name is Claude Jutra".

The Shining strikes me as one of only three Stephen King adaptations that are completely successful, the others being Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption. Unlike that other film, The Shining was from the start in for a substantial makeover, in this case by Stanley Kubrick and his co-screenwriter Diane Johnson. For this reason, the film has never really pleased many fans of the original book who believe that films must be faithfully and accurately transcribed to screen in order to be considered a successful adaptation.

Watching The Shining today, what strikes one are the uncommonly elegant sets, the lack of special effects (one trick shot of the hedge maze notwithstanding), the gliding Steadicam cinematography and the tricky tone the film manages to maintain between horror film, domestic drama and very black comedy. There are scenes in the film that never fail to make me laugh and others that give one the appropriate creepy frisson expected of a horror film.

The film takes a distinctly more psychological approach than the novel. While the hotel does appear to be truly haunted in the film (Danny sees ghosts, Jack appears in the portrait in the final shot, etc.), it's also possible to read all of the scenes between Jack and Lloyd (the bartender) or the Grady (the former caretaker) as the delusions of an alcoholic having a breakdown. Certainly, the subtext is at the very least made quite clear. Oddly, the one scene in the film that I recall making clear beyond question that the supernatural is at work (when the ghost of Grady opens the storage locker door to release Jack) is actually ambivalent. Jack speaks to Grady through the door and we simply hear the door being unlocked while the camera remains on Jack's face...the next time we see him he is hacking away at the bedroom door with an Axe. Perhaps he used the ax to bust open the locker door himself? In any event, Nicholson is great in the film, perhaps his finest performance.

The Blu-ray is (as expected) notably crisper looking than earlier DVD's. There is some grain evident and the colors don't quite "pop" in the same way that they do for some more recent films but this is undoubtedly the best The Shining has ever looked on video. Considering this is one of the best photographed films of it's period, I think most people will be pleased with the picture.