18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BEAUTIFUL!, March 29, 2003
By A Customer
I have patiently (and gratefully !) viewed my Facets Video VHS OBERWALD print/edition 2 or 3 times now.
It's beautiful!
I encourage anyone to acquire it. Especially if you are an Antonioni fan.
Useful to note, OBERWALD was originally done on video tape. OBERWALD was probably Antonioni's first full-length videotaping effort. It thus has a different look and feel than regular multi-frame film stock.
Antonioni's use of color filters for certain scenes and/or subelements of scenes, will interest, please (some of the results of the color filtering are beautiful), and fascinate many viewers.
OBERWALD is less famous than other Antonioni efforts. It is likely to be a later acquisition for many Antonioni video collectors. Its beauty and color usage is comparable, however, to two of his other color films, Red Desert and Beyond the Clouds.
...ie, if you love the beauty, magic, and color of Red Desert and Beyond the Clouds, get OBERWALD, also...you will HARDLY be disappointed!
...OBERWALD, and this print, are hardly only for 'completist' Antonioni viewers/collectors and fans...
Some of the exquisite color scenes and sequences of OBERWALD are memorable/unforgettable, and are recalled with rich appreciation, after only a few viewings.
This film is also desirable for other reasons. It is comparably wordier than many of Antonioni films. It has a rather full script, with plenty of good dialogue. It is interesting to watch a modernist (and masterful) film maker work occasionally with a full script, and rely less for interpretable values on abstract stretches of silence.
The melodramatic conclusion to this film may surprise some Antonioni viewers. It is, after all, a Jean Cocteau script!
(OBERWALD is adapted from Cocteau's 'The Eagle Has Two Heads,' an historical romance...but don't let that throw you. Whether or not you like Cocteau, or historical romances, you will STILL love OBERWALD. I am but a lesser fan of Cocteau. I am an even lesser fan of historical romances, and I STILL think OBERWALD is EXCELLENT.)
Viewers will also be astonished at Monica Vitti's appearance. Vitti was 50 years old at the making of this film. She looks 30!
The subtitles are also in color, quite clear and visible, hardly interfere with the beauty of the film, easy on the eyes, and suffer from minimal problems (spelling, grammar.)
The box states 129 mins. for film length. Author Sam Rohdie also lists the same length in minutes for the film itself. This Facets Video edition is likely to be quite complete.
GET this valuable and beautiful Antonioni film, before it goes out of print, out of stock, or endures some other frustrating phase of unavailability!
I am quite pleased to own my Facets Video VHS copy.
It is well worth the price. You'll be glad you procured it.
-moosbrugger
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best films ever made!, April 7, 2007
This review is from: Mystery of Oberwald (NON-US Format, PAL Region 2) (DVD)
Based on a Cocteau' s play "The eagle of two heads", constitutes a notable and magisterial adaptation of Michelangelo Antonioni, "The great master of the silence", whose handlñe of camera is imply admirable.
A young anarchical poet is hired to mureder a Queen who spends one night in Oberwald's castle. She has been unable to forget her husband and so, the crucial encounter between these two lonely human beings from opposite sides of the hierarchical pyramid will fall in love. But the well know envy,. Courtier intrigues and a well known rivalry respect to an Duchess who pretends to make herself with the Throne conform a dramatis personae of existential feature. He eventually will encourage her to assume her lost position that the awful memories of her dead husband made she withdrew of her people.
Memorable, outstanding and mesmerizing film all the way through.
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