Tesis/Abre Los Ojos

[Mister Chalk]

Having seen and enjoyed The Others, I have been looking for Amenabar's other films. I see from DVD Profiler that Abre Los Ojos is out somewhere in R2 with English subs, and I know that Tartan *shudder* are releasing Tesis. Does anyone know if either of these discs are worth picking up?

[jonathan.e]

The R2 Open Your Eyes is non-anamorphic whereas the subtitled R1 release is anamorphic and is dirt cheap (@$10) almost everywhere.

Personally I would never pay for any Tartan product although I understand their recent Bergman releases are a vast improvment over their usual standard, purely because they were mastered by someone else.

[Richie]

I've just got the Artisan R1 release of "Abre Los Ojos", and very nice it is too!

[Mister Chalk]

According to Profiler the Spanish(?) R2 Abre Los Ojos, while not anamorphic, has commentary, featurette and additional short film "La Luna". And the cover looks better. Since I'm using an old-fashioned 4:3 telly, anamorphic isn't that big a deal to me at the moment.

[jonathan.e]

The commentary and (afaik) the featurette are not subtitled so unless you speak Spanish they’ll not be of much use to you.

[Roy Batty]

The spanish ABRE LOS OJOS is a full-fledged Special edition, with a making of, story boards, designs, audio commentary track, isolated score track, a short film by Amenabar and the works, though, sadly, it isn't anamorphic.

As for the TESIS edition currently available in Spain, you should avoid it as the plague! Video quality is awful, and it's been disavowed by Amenabar himself, more so when there's a new special edition coming in the near future.

Hope that helps.

:)

[Mister Chalk]

Thanks guys. Looks like I might go for the R1 Abre Los Ojos and wait and see if a decent release of Tesis appears later.

[Purpledump]

Just watched the Spanish R2 (Bought this while in Spain some time ago. I didn't know what it was about back then, but the sales assistant recommended it.) I'd Just like to comment on the picture quality, for those purely making their decision based on that.

The picture was so clear and sharp, I could have been fooled about it being non-anamorphic. I didn't notice any softness, and blacks were solid. The only nags I had were that the subtitles were a little cut off on the bottom, and some specks towards the end of the movie. Heck, I was really not expecting much, but this is a good transfer. I didn't know non-anamorphic DVDs <I>could</I> look this good.

There are some nice features for non-spanish speakers like the isolated score, trailer to TESIS, the concept posters (which looked quite interesting, since they looked a little Photoshoppy). Overall I am quite happy with the DVD. Just my 2 cents. Quite looking forward to The Others and Tesis now.

[zazzx]

The Spanish R2 has an excellent DD5.1 soundtrack while the US version doesn't although I'd expect it to be rereleased in R1 in the near future - Vanilla Sky having been released etc.

I thought the Spanish version was great - the picture is very good so that shouldn't put you off.

Anthony.

[Dagada]

The R2 release of Tesis is not too bad. Picture quality varies from time to time and the sound is OK on my bog standard TV. I do have some questions regarding whether Tartan are releasing films at the correct ratio, though. I have a sneaking suspicion that Chronos is pan and scan, that Nowhere To Hide is not in it's full original ratio (Notice the scenes with the flashing red lights where half the image is cut off, and the scene with the imagined food bowl where it's suddenly half off the screen). However, this looked OK unless anyone else knows better. The subs are not burnt in, either, which is a nice change. Still, I'd like better picture quality for the amount that Tartan like to charge us.