Friday, January 05, 2007

Blood Diamond - Prelude

Before I write my thoughts on the movie, I'd like to say something about an irritating incident.

I first went to catch Blood Diamond at Suntec Eng Wah as they were screening it in digital format. I'm a big supporter of digital movies and try to watch them at a digital cinema where possible. So, I settled into my seat with my drink and as the movie started, I couldn't help but feel irritated coz the people were all the wrong size! For some reason, all the characters were stretched sideways, like when we try to watch normal TV programmes on a widescreen tv. At first, I tried to tolerate it but as the movie went on, it just felt wrong. I mean everyone in the movie, even the starved africans, were stretched sideways, making them look plump. So, I went up to the cinema staff to tell them that they'd probably made a mistake with the aspect ratio for the movie. I was then told by the manager that this was the way the movie was supposed to be screened! He said they had asked the distributor to come in to check it out in earlier and they had said it was correct. He then kinda suggested that perhaps I just wasn't used to this kind of filming. I was like... HUH? Since when would a director try to make an artistic statement by asking that his movie be screened in the wrong ratio? So, I asked for a refund and said I wasn't gonna spend money on a movie which was obviously in the wrong ratio. The redeeming point is that the manager willingly (not grudgingly) gave me a refund.

Well, today, I went to GV Grand to catch BD in normal film format and although there were the few irritating 'hairs' and 'scratches' on the screen, the movie was in perfect ratio. I have no idea what went wrong with Eng Wah's digital screening. My thoughts on the movie will be in the next post.

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