The day I thought nobody ever thought would arrive is here: the day
Jose Mojica Marins classic films have been released in HD. Well, most of 'em, anyway. Arrow's new 6-disc boxed set 'Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe' features all-new restorations of nine of his most famous films from the 60s and 70s, as well as
Embodiment of Evil from 2008, and packs in a whole ton of documentaries, shorts, special features and swag. For Coffin Joe fans, this is a big deal.
It also has to be noted that
a replacement program is currently in effect because the subtitles for
Awakening Of the Beast are broken. And unless you're fluent in Portuguese, you need 'em to watch the movie; it's no small detail.
Update 3/25/24:
And now they're here! If you buy this set new, now, you should have the
replacement disc already in the package. But to be sure, you might want to double-check
against the above photo, which shows the code on the new version with
the functioning subtitles (specifically, you want it to end in "V3").
So
I've updated the pages where I already covered most of these films with
the new blu-ray versions. Everything else we'll be looking at right
here. So click the links below for the following films:
...But if you just want a lightning quick verdict, I'll
spare you the trouble. They're all solid upgrades. Some are a little
more subtle in their jumps in PQ than others, in large part because some
were scanned from their original negatives, while others had to use
other sources. Comparing some of the later films in particular to their
old DVDs will really make you say wow. Yes, they've really made
genuine HD upgrades for all of them, despite some suggestion in the past
that it would be impossible. Go see for yourselves.
Now, the biggest thing that leaves to cover here is easily 1972's never-before-released
When the Gods Fall Asleep, a sequel to
The End of Man.
Our man Fin escapes from the asylum once again, only to this time find
himself in the middle of a gang war in the local slums. After a while
he gives a speech about man's ability to reason and breaks it all up.
This catches the attention of a Satanic cult, who decide that Finis must
be some kind of representative of Lucifer. But after a while, he shows
up and gives another speech, convincing them to stop their sacrifice.
Then he breaks up a fight at a wedding and another at a brothel. At
this point, the movie's already almost over, and I won't spoil the
"twist," but it ain't much of one.
Along the way, though, Marins recruits an impressive amount of
extras and does show us some sights: a couple having sex in a barrel, a
prostitute pooping in a broken toilet. Look, I didn't say they were
good or appealing sights. The look is bright and colorful, though,
except for a few scenes which inexplicably dip into black and white.
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the switching; it just
happens. Jaunty, needle drop music helps perk up the proceedings, but I
don't think I'd recommend this movie to anyone but diehard completists.
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2024 Arrow BD.
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When the Gods Fall Asleep comes
from a fresh 4k scan of the only existing 35mm print, and looks pretty
good from such a limited source. It's bright and clear, though I'm sure
it could've been a bit sharper if the original negatives had been
available. But if I didn't know, I would have guessed this was from a
closer source, like an interpositive, than just a print. The colors are
strong without being over-saturated, looking faded in only a few
shots. A few of the black and white shots look a little more worse for
the wear, too, suggesting perhaps that Marins used lower quality film
for a few shots. The original 1.37:1 is perfectly preserved and damage
appears occasionally, mostly in the form of vertical scratches, but it's
fairly minor. And the film grain is thorough and natural, suggesting
about as good an encode as you could hope for without an actual UHD
disc.
The original LPCM Portuguese audio is a little rough and
echo-y, but I'm sure it's as good as the film has ever sounded. And the
English subtitles are removable, with just one or two little errors I
spotted throughout (like "liveforms" in the opening monologue).
So let's get into the special features, not just for this film, but
the whole set. It's a long list. I'm color-coding it to distinguish
between those new to this set (
red), and those carried over from previous Coffin Joe releases (black):
- Audio commentaries by Marins, filmmaker Paulo Duarte & expert Carlos Primati on At
Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, The
Strange World of Coffin Joe, Awakening Of the Beast, End of Man and Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, and a commentary by producer Paulo Sacramento & co-screenwriter Dennison Ramalho on Embodiment of Evil
- Video essay by expert Lindsay Hallam
- Bloody Kingdom, his 1950 short film with Marin's commentary
- Clips from his other early works The Adventurer's Fate and My Destiny In Your Hands
- Strange World alternate ending (with optional commentary by Marins)
- A 90 minute retrospective by expert Stephen Thrower
- Video essay by expert Miranda Corcoran
- Alternate Awakening Of the Beast opening credits
- Video essay by expert Guy Adams
- Video essay by expert Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- Video essay by expert Virginie Sélavy
- Video essay by expert Jack Sargeant
- Interview with Dennison Ramalho
- Archival 2001 Sundance footage
- A Blind Date for Coffin Joe (short film)
- Video essay by expert Andrew Leavold
- Video essay by expert Kat Ellinger
- A second part of that interview with Dennison Ramalho
- Footage of Marins at the 2009 Fantasia Film Festival Premiere
- A massive 90-minute Zoom chat with Dennison Ramalho
- Official Embodiment Making Of
- "Experimental" Embodiment Making Of
- Embodiment deleted scenes with commentary by Marins
- Brief visual effects featurette with commentary by Marins
- Brief storyboards featurette with commentary by Marins
- Ten original trailers for the films in this set
TL;DR,
they carried over a few things, created a whole bunch of new extras
with their own usual cadre of experts, and still left many of the
interviews and other vintage materials from the Portuguese set behind,
still frustratingly never translated into English. The real coup are
the commentaries, which technically aren't new, but have been subtitled
from the Portuguese discs into English for the very first time, and that
definitely counts! It's too bad they didn't carry over and translate
all that other great stuff, but finally getting to listen to most of Marins'
commentaries is awesome.
Even stuff that Synapse saved from the Portuguese set, like interviews
with Marins and his museum tour, or the crazy new scene he created for
At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul,
have been left behind. So we took our two forward, but also the step backwards there. The Fantoma
interviews and Mondo Macabro's Coffin Joe documentary have also been
left out.
Demons and Wonders
isn't here either, let alone all of the wild, untranslated extras on
that disc. So yeah, you'll have to hang on to pretty much all of your
old DVDs. I so much would have preferred just getting the cool,
existing extras carried over and translated when needed than most of the
new stuff by experts, but oh well. There's no arguing that this is a
pretty packed set, with at least some absolutely essential bonus
features.
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not the real Coffin Joe.
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Of
the expert stuff, it's interesting just to hear all the varying ways
they pronounce "Jose." Stephen Thrower's is less a visual essay and
more a lecture towards camera with occasional cut-ins, but it's also the
most informational and worth your time. Some of the other ones are too
breezy and feel like they're just giving a brief overview of what
anyone who's buying a set like this would already know, or just pointing
out what you'd clearly see on screen yourself once you've watched the
films. They tend to all use the same film clips, too. So you're going
to see the same signature shots over and over, which makes the
temptation to skip some of these increasingly tempting. Well, I've
watched 'em all and yeah, just watch Thrower's.
The
Blind Date for Coffin Joe is a genuinely funny short film that's been on Youtube, but I'm glad it made its way here, and it's cool that we got more
Embodiment of Evil stuff
than Synapse and Anchor Bay were able to provide, especially the
deleted scenes. The packaging and physical bonuses are impressive,
too. The whole thing comes in a solid box with a lift-off lid housing
six amary cases with reversible artwork (though it's a little annoying
that each film only gets printed on one side, including the spine,
making it an unnecessarily irritating challenge to figure out which
films are on which discs). There's also a double-sided fold-out poster,
a substantial, 90-page full-color book, an art card for every film, a
bonus art card, an especially fun replication of Coffin Joe's business
card as seen in the original film, and a card for another Arrow release
(mine was the Spaghetti western
Matalo).
And, of course, this still isn't a complete collection of Marin's
films. Between his more recent work and television stuff, there's at
least enough material for a Volume 2, if Arrow feels up for it (and if
the rights are feasible). I certainly don't miss his porno stuff, but a
few films, especially
The Strange Exorcism of Coffin Joe, are conspicuous in their absence. Stuff like
The Hour of Fear,
Trilogy of Terror,
The Curse and
The Plague would be great. I fear, like with
Criterion's massive Bergman box,
fans will get it and think they have everything, leaving the remaining
work to fade into obscurity. But also like the Criterion box, I never
thought we'd get a release half this fantastic. I mean, I can remember
Synapse explaining how we'd never get the original Coffin Joes in
anything better than their DVDs because the film elements had dissolved
into dust, and yet here we are - huzzah!
In regards to THE BLOODY EXORCISM OF COFFIN JOE (EXORCISMO NEGRO), per James Flower:
ReplyDelete"We tried to get Exorcismo Negro too, but it's with a different rights holder who didn't want to play ball, alas."