MovieChat Forums > Tras el cristal (1986) Discussion > Darkness, darkness everywhere

Darkness, darkness everywhere

posted 14 years ago by groggo
4 replies | jump to latest

This movie could be nothing more than 'dark,' given its unrelentingly bleak subject matter. But for me, the movie was LITERALLY dark. I watched it on my 27-inch TV screen via a DVD, and missed about 70 per cent of what was going on. On a large screen in a theatre, this might not have been a problem. When transferred to the small screen, it was not just dark, but often downright opaque.

Somebody once said you can tell if a film has great camera lighting if the images are intact when transferred to a small screen. If this is true, the lighting on this movie can only be described as terrible. Very frustrating.

[–] toni_nordli 14 years ago

Yeah, I just watched the film on DVD myself (the Cult Epics DVD version), on a Pioneer 32 inch LCD TV.

I watched half of it at night, then it was good (as I can remember before I went to sleep).

The other half I watched when I woke up in the morning. Perhaps it was because of the daylight it was hard to see what was going on... but... I've never ever had the same problem other films in this room at morning. I had to turn up the brightness.

I blame the transfer of this movie. First off: interlacing when the characters move. And yeah - it's dark. I had to turn up the brightness on my TV.
The picture quality gets a 3/10 from me. Really, when I have to pause the movie and ruin the suspense just to turn up the brightness... it ruins the experience!

[–] Falconeer 13 years ago

Funny, I have this same edition but i didn't notice this at all. Every image was lit perfectly, the dark scenes possessed a blue glow, as was meant to be, and every image could be plainly seen. Perhaps it is your tv; this film had some masterful lighting IMO..

"IMdB; where 14 year olds can act like jaded 40 year old critics...'

[–] sypherdivine 12 years ago

Perhaps you had a special copy of the film or your television was special Labia Mirage because this film was incredibly dark in the last quarter of it. I could tell what was occurring but I found myself straining to see it even though my room was pitch black dark.

[–] PostmortemG 12 years ago

I'm sure that the new edition of this film looks incredible. Yeah, the old Cult Epics version suffers from an awful, flawed transfer, but it's apparent that the movie was masterfully lit anyway. Sooner or later, I'll upgrade to the recent edition that I've seen in web stores. Even Cult Epics' ugly transfer job didn't compromise my enjoyment of this amazing film.

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