DVD Talk review of 'Abhijan - Masters of Cinema'
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DVD Talk review of 'Abhijan - Masters of Cinema'
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=27887
MOC, like Criterion, makes their discs region-free unless they're specifically required not to by the licensor. As for NTSC, several other MOC discs (mostly Japanese films) are also in that format; in cases where no PAL master is available, MOC prefers to do a native NTSC transfer rather than convert it to PAL and reduce the quality. Just one of the many reasons they're among my favorite DVD companies out there.
An MOC employee recently disclosed that this is one of their poorest sellers and its lack of success to date has precluded the possibility of seeing other Ray films from the company. So they may be (belatedly) trying to bring it to the attention of U.S. cinephiles. I'm definitely glad you've done your part -- I was pretty taken with this (even though it's generally considered a "minor" entry in Ray's filmography) and I hope your review sells those few thousand extra copies they need in order to bring us more of his films ;)
The DVD came as a real surprise to this reviewer. Eureka!'s "Masters of Cinema" line, the British equivalent of Criterion, has in Region 2 / PAL format been offering similarly packaged art house-type classics for several years, but for some reason this disc is NTSC and All-Region. It suggests the company acquired something like worldwide rights, but the fine print notes that the title is for sale in the U.K. and Ireland only.
How and why it turned up on DVD Talk's screener pile nearly a year after its official release date is unknown.
Last edited by Dan Average; 05-26-07 at 07:59 PM.