![Black Moon: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] (1975)](/wp_content/uploads/2011/08/510n5TpFcUL._SL500_AA300__150x150.jpg "Black Moon: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] (1975)")
BLACK MOON (1975, Blu-ray released June 28, 2011 – MSRP $39.95)
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Black Moon is a bewildering, abstract trip down the rabbit hole of a French auteur’s mind. I’d go so far as to say it’s writer/director Louis Malle‘s most challenging work. But I think, for me, my love for the film is less about the narrative and more the lush photography of Sven Nykvist, now looking better than ever on this new Blu-ray edition of the film from Criterion.
- “Louis Malle meets Lewis Carroll in this bizarre and bewitching trip down the rabbit hole. After skirting the horrors of a mysterious war being waged in the countryside, beautiful young Lily (Cathryn Harrison) takes refuge in a remote farmhouse, where she becomes embroiled in the surreal domestic life of an extremely unconventional family. Evocatively shot by cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Black Moon is a Freudian tale of adolescent sexuality set in a postapocalyptic world of shifting identities and talking animals. It is one of Malle’s most experimental films and a cinematic daydream like no other.“
Malle himself admitted that creating Black Moon was an exercise in channeling his subconscious. The late director was never exactly certain about the meaning of the film either. Which makes me feel a lot better about my inability to interpret the story as anything even vaguely meaningful. Making sense of Black Moon is like trying to figure a dream – you can read all sorts of meaning into any aspect of it that you want but in the end, it’s more about how it makes you feel than what your intellect can make of it. And outside of my deep feeling of joy looking at Nykvist’s photography, the feeling it leaves me with is one of being unsettled.
Black Moon is most often described as the director’s take on Alice in Wonderland, where a young girl is thrust into a sort-of dream land that represents her subconscious struggle to make sense of her impending womanhood. That theme is pretty clear in the film but the imagery Malle uses to form his narrative is far more grounded in realism and dark in tone than Alice, save for the odd appearance of an elusive, talking, black Unicorn. Yep…talking unicorn. The strangest part about it though, is that in a film that is largely without dialogue, that unicorn is positively chatty! If I had to hazard a guess, I’d bet that the unicorn is her childhood, her life of innocence escaping her. Deep, I know. But it fits with the film. You can see how you might enjoy the film more if you try not to analyze it, though. It’s a much more fluid experience to let it just wash over you and take from it what you will than to try to pick it apart.
I would, however, pick apart the high-def transfer of Black Moon that Criterion has provided on their new Blu-ray edition of the film, if there was much to actually pick apart. This is a great looking disc! I’ve never seen the film before so I don’t really have a point of reference to make any comparison with the image presented here but for the most part, everything looks amazing! Colours are vivid (too vivid perhaps?), detail is fantastic and the whole thing just looks like you’re watching it off of 35 mm. I did note one particular anomaly in the print that Criterion’s cleanup didn’t completely wipe out. There’s a small, almost imperceptible line about a third of the way over from the left side of the screen that caught my eye around the one-hour mark. It might run through more of the print but I only noticed it for a while, against bare sky, when it really stood out. But really, this is a small criticism of an otherwise brilliant looking restoration and transfer.
From the booklet:
- “This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from the original 35mm camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI’s DRS system and Pixel Farm’s PFClean system, while Digital Vision’s DVNR system was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction.“
The lossless mono soundtrack (in original English or French dub) is less impressive, but only because there isn’t as much to experience. There’s little dialogue or music in the film. Even the sound design is fairly sparse. But both tracks are solid and dynamic when they come to life. Good stuff!
From the booklet:
- “The monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the 35mm sound negative. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube’s integrated workstation. “
The only real disappointment with the Black Moon Blu-ray is the lack of supplemental material. The main item of interest is a 13-minute excerpt from a vintage French TV show called Pour le cinema, where Malle discusses the characters and narrative of the film. It’s actually quite good and well worth a watch. If it were only a touch longer it would be perfect. The 16-page booklet included in the package, featuring the very fine essay “Louis in Wonderland” by author Ginette Vincendeau is the only other insight provided into the film. The disc is rounded out by a gallery of stills and the theatrical trailer.
Special Features:
- New high-definition digital restoration with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Archival interview with director Louis Malle
- Gallery of behind-the-scenes photos
- Alternate French-dubbed soundtrack
- Original theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A new essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau
