- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (24Hz)
- Audio Codec: English LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/24-bit)
- Subtitles: English HOH
- Subtitles Color: White
- Region: B (Region-Locked)
- Certification: 15
- Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD)
- Run time: 119 Mins.
- Studio: BFI
- Blu-ray Release Date: June 18, 2012
- RRP: £19.99
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Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Director Peter Greenaway’s (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) 1987 film The Belly of an Architect is a beautifully filmed psychological drama that delves into the mania of the artistic temperament. Taking as its subject an American architect, Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) who arrives in Rome with his young wife Louisa (Chloe Webb), to oversee a project on 18th century French Architect Etienne-Louis Boullée. The two men, separated by centuries, have a lot in common, both having only a few completed works, and both being little known outside architectural circles.
As the project progresses, Kracklite begins to obsesses over his belly, pains growing inside him daily and suspicions that his wife is poisoning him, not unlike Augustus, the infamous Roman emperor, weigh heavily on his mind. As his personal obsession grows, so to does his lack of attention toward his young wife, who is pregnant and begins having an affair with the young and dashing architect Caspian Speckler (Lambert Wilson).
The beautiful Roman settings offer a grand backdrop to the artistically inclined, geometrically perfect framings of The Belly of an Architect. It also alludes often to spherical shapes like domes and figs tying together both the artist’s obsession over his own belly and his wife’s pregnancy.
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
‘The Belly of an Architect was transferred in high definition from an interpositive located in London. The film elements were photo-chemically cleaned and scanned. The film was then fully match-graded to get the best colour image. The interpositive showed some damage, including watermarks caused by the original processing when the element was created. A digital image clean-up and stabilisation was done to improve some of the film defect issues. Some of the film defects and original film weave do remain including some problems with the original film density that could not be fixed.‘
They’ve done a good job restoring The Belly of an Architect, allowing the image to keep a filmic appearance, although it is not perfect by any means. There are issues with some excessive graininess in dark areas that verges on noise; this also tends to cover up detail. Blacks often take on a little bit of a greenish hue as well. Still, there is good textural information and flesh tones are rather good.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio was provided by MGM in the US. It’s offered up on this Blu-ray in a LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/24-bit) mix that is good enough for the dialogue-dominated material, even if the recording itself sometimes allows for the dialogue to get a little lost.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
This BFI issue is a little thin in comparison to some other BFI releases, but it still offers a high quality of extras worth going through.
The supplements:
- Insight: Terence Conran (UK; 15-mins; HD) – Greenaway’s portrait of the designer and entrepreneur, with an uncredited score by Michael Nyman.
- DVD-ROM Content (downloadable PDFs) featuring original script, press pack, and sheet music.
- DVD
- Booklet: The illustrated booklet features an essay on the film, interview, biographies, and credits.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Belly of an Architect is one of those oddly intriguing, European art house dramas that successfully pulls together a cast of quirky characters in a surreal storyline and makes it all fit. As a look into the manic mind of an artist, it is a strong work and one that fits in well with the BFI catalogue on the whole.
Additional Screen Captures
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Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
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