Monday, April 21, 2008

Anatomy of Hell (2004)

Anatomy of Hell (Anatomie de l'enfer) took a little while to hit DVD... it first came out on a nice, widescreen and uncut DVD from Russia (CP Digital), but unfortunately it only featured French and Russian language options. I've seen a bunch of US dealers sell it - so I guess there was a market for people who were keen enough to see the controversial bits that they'd watch it without being able to speak the language, but the rest of us would have to wait.

Eventually, Tartan picked it up and put it out in both the US (NTSC R1) and UK (PAL R2) markets. It was a top quality release: an excellent, anamorphic widescreen transfer, and it's uncut (unlike Tartan's release of Fat Girl). They also included a terrific 65 minute(!) interview with Breillat on the film (included on both editions).

The Canadian release from Mongrel Media is a heavily cut, R-rated edition, though, so avoid that (it does still include the Breillat interview, however).

The French disc from Aventi actually has it a little over on the Tartan discs... they have the same, long interview with Breillat, but they've also included a short making-of featurette. As usual, though, there are no English language options on that disc, so we miss out. And by the way, compare the French cover image to the others: exactly the same photo, but they apparently photoshopped a shirt onto Amira Casar in the American, UK, and Canadian markets!

There's also an Australian DVD, by the way, with an uncut, widescreen print (as well as an uncut cover), but it's missing both the Breillat interview and the making-of. So, unless you speak French, take your pick (PAL or NTSC) between the Tartans.

2 comments:

uncut dvds said...

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Anonymous said...

FWIW, my copy of the Mongrel Media DVD appears entirely uncensored despite being rated R.