So is the Facets print cut by 3-4 minutes?
Is everyone in this house a total nutzoid or is it just me?
No - it's because it was taken from a Czech video source, which was encoded according to the European PAL video standard.
As a result, it plays at 25 frames per second instead of the theatrical 24, with the result that it appears to be three minutes shorter, though there's no difference in terms of the actual footage content.
The problem here is that this makes it an unconverted PAL-to-NTSC source (nothing new for the notoriously incompetent Facets), which means hello ghosting and artifact city!
shareHard to knock Facets as they distribute many worthwhile movies that probably wouldn't be made available otherwise, even if their notes look like they were done on an old black & white Xerox machine and they put little if any effort into making the films look good. They have a place, and do well with what they've got, which probably isn't much. The Second Run UK version looks very good, and also runs 73 minutes, and it's PAL. IMDB, now, at least, lists the time as 73 minutes. When the Second Run DVD version first came out, it was Region 0, PAL. I'm in the U.S. but ordered it and it plays fine on my cheap DVD player and TV. Everything is better about the Second Run version... looks more like Criterion quality. I wish Criterion would pick up this Czech gem as they have others, at least for an Eclipse series, but preferably giving it the full treatment, and blu-ray to give those of us in the States a better option. I thought, maybe with the release of the soundtrack and the little bits of hype coming from bands like Broadcast and Espers, and the touring Valery Project, that somebody would see an opportunity to release a excellent DVD/blu-ray of the film itself.
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