I was very much looking forward to this being released on blu-ray, but now I am reading reviews that say the transfers have been so digitally enforced as to scrub out detail in the picture.
Has anyone seen the newest home video release either in the U.S. or Europe and care to comment?
As you can see from the screen captures of the Blu-ray below, the picture does look somewhat soft and waxy:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/reviews/childrenof%20paradise.htm
Has anyone seen the restored film in a theater? Did it look just as bad? Just want to know if it was the film's restoration or the transfer to Blu-ray that was the cause of this soft and waxy appearance.
The theatrical trailer for the restored film also looks kind of waxy:
http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/children_of_paradise
I just got back from it a couple of hours ago and it did indeed look terrible.
Bits and pieces of it looked good, moreso in the second part of the film but a good deal of it was hideous with a lot of moments where you could hardly see any of the details in background objects.
It was a real shame cause I thought the movie itself was great.
I Was Here But I Disapear
It's just been restaured (it took almost two years to do it) and was shown last night on german/french canal ARTE. It is for me one of the best french film ever made. But people who do not speak french will loose a good part of it. As an exemple , when Garance says to Lacenaire "vous avez la tête trop chaude pour moi, Pierre-François, et le coeur trop froid, j'crains les courants d'air", I feel it cannot be translated completely.
Do not know if a version with english sub titles is already available.