The Dreamlife Of Angels (1999)
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Cast: Elodie Bouchez, Natacha Régnier, Grégoire Colin
Extras:
Rating:

In their continued effort to release international movies to American audiences, Columbia TriStar Home Video has prepared the French Production ’The Dreamlife Of Angels’ for release on this DVD. It is the marvelously touching drama of two unlikely friends, that has been honored with a number of European Film Awards.

Columbia TriStar Home Video is presenting the movie in its original widescreen presentation on this DVD in an anamorphic transfer that restores the movie’s original 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio. The source print from which the transfer was taken is generally clean and devoid of any deficiencies, but it appears quite grainy and soft at times, which seems to be result of the film stock used. The DVD captures this look entirely and presents it beautifully with rich colors and a detailed image. Color delineation is good, although the entire movie has an intentionally desaturated look. Fleshtones are naturally rendered while blacks are deep and well balanced off with the picture’s highlights. The compression is without flaws and running at DVD’s highest average bitrate shows no signs of pixelation or chroma noise anywhere.

’The Dreamlife Of Angels’ comes with its original French audio track in Dolby Stereo and sports optional subtitles in English, French and Spanish. The audio is well produced and naturally sounding without distortion or noise. While no notable low end is present in the track, the overall impression is well-balanced and pleasant. Interestingly the disc does not contain any supplements, not even the film’s theatrical trailer or cast biographies.

Once again, Columbia TriStar Home Video makes a great foreign movie available on this DVD in a staggeringly beautiful presentation, and I am sure many fans of beautifully acted and human dramas will be delighted to get their hands on this DVD of ’The Dreamlife Of Angels.’