Then, I watched Akira Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW. I'd never seen it before.
In a word, masterpiece. A 143-minute crime drama-procedural that's so riveting I lost all track of time, and it was over before I knew it.
And the transfer is just superb. With lots of tight knit lines that on lesser encodes would be aliasing all over the place, there wasn't a second of line twitter.
Why can't all movies be this good?
Glad to see someone finally catching up with the movie I've probably written about more than any other on this here site, simply because I watch it at least three times a year. I've proclaimed this Kurosawa's best film and a masterpiece since the day I first saw it, sometime back in the mid-70s.
The various DVD incarnations are fascinating - Criterion's original DVD was misframed at about 2:1. Then I got the official Japanese DVD (without subtitles) which was obviously a much better transfer, but at a 2:55 ratio, which, for 1962 isn't really correct. Then I got an Australian DVD which is almost as thin as Ben-Hur - now there is more information on the sides of those transfers, but it's miniscule - and I think this new Criterion is probably correct at 2:35, which is what theaters showed scope in in the 60s. The Australian DVD was the only one to have the Perspecta stereo track, but I'm happy to say the Criterion does as well. I'll be getting it first thing Tuesday.
