Wakamatsu/Image Forum [was Tomato kecchappu otei]

[M Arnold]

I don't remember having much trouble with the Wakamatsu videos.  I rented
the series and thought the transfers were fairly good, especially
considering their age.  ("Kabe no naka no himegoto" was understandably bad
though.)  I was particularly impressed with the quality of the "Ryakusho
renzoku shasatsu ma" VHS.

For some reason that film reminds me of Aoyama's "Roji e"...  Speaking of
which, the Kinokuniya DVD for Aoyama's film is very good (it even has
English subs), but there are a number of scenes in this film that are
overexposed.  Am I correct in assuming that this is intentional?

From: "Miles Wood" <diabolik at netvigator.com>:
> The Uplink DVD of JOJI NO RIREKISHO is also disappointing in this regard.

The Uplink DVDs that I've seen have been awful.  Even when the source isn't
horrible, the definition of the DVD image seems to be very low.  (I admit I
know very little about how DVDs are made though so I probably shouldn't say
too much.)  I rented The Decalogue DVDs, and they were depressingly bad, but
I'm not sure if Uplink deserves the credit for that or not.  I was very
satisfied with their DVD of "The New God" but the process may have been
different in that case.  At least Uplink is selling the pink movies at 3800
yen and adding bonus features like interviews and so forth.

A video rental store here in Seattle has the new Uplink Kaurismaki DVDs, so
maybe I'll test them out.

> long ago, so even if the original neg's are lost shouldn't there be prints
> available to master these releases from? Uplink's DVD of Sato's MIMITSU NO

I think most of the Image Forum Wakamatsu videos were mastered from 35mm
"new prints".  (http://www.imageforum.co.jp/wakamatsu/wkmt2.html)  I know
there were older VHS releases of some of the films in the 80s and 90s, but I
haven't seen any of the old versions so I have no idea how they compare.

Going back to Terayama, as far as I could tell from watching the video I
think the problem with the long version of "Tomato" was the print they used.
I don't remember any of the other Terayama videos being that hard to watch.
Also, the 3 (?) Pioneer DVDs of Terayama's ATG films are quite good.

Michael Arnold