THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON (1995) Blu-ray
Director: Philip Ridley
Arrow Video USA/MVD Visual

What do you get when you cast Ashley Judd and Brendan Fraser in an art film? THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

Fleeing from a stormed religious compound where his parents were gunned down, Darkly Noon (Fraser) stumbles deep into the forest and is nearly run down by a pickup truck driven by Jude (Loren Dean, BILLY BATHGATE) who works for the local undertaker. He takes Darkly to the remote farm of Callie (Judd) whose mute boyfriend Clay (Viggo Mortensen, INDIAN RUNNER) makes coffins by hand from the local lumber. Darkly is uneasy about Callie's sensual manner and confused by her kindness, but starts to feel a kindred spirit when he learns that she and Clay are similarly outcast from the nearby town and under gunfire from someone in the woods who tries to scare them. When Clay returns from one of his long absences wandering the woods, however, Darkly becomes jealous and goes to extreme lengths to resist his attraction to Callie. When he storms from the house and falls asleep in the woods, he meets shotgun-toting hermit Roxy (David Lynch favorite Grace Zabriskie, INLAND EMPIRE) who claims Callie is a witch who killed her husband and bewitched her son. When he is unable to deny his attraction to Callie and his aggression towards Clay, the bullet-riddled specters of his parents (Mel Cobb and Kate Harper) turn up to tell him how to purify himself and the entire forest.

While artist-turned-filmmaker Philip Ridley's acclaimed debut feature THE REFLECTING SKIN was a macabre take on Norman Rockwell's "American Gothic" with elements of Andrew Wyeth and a David Lynch-like exploration of the underbelly of that idyllic Americana, THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON is a Southern Gothic rumination of religious intolerance and extremism, coming only two years after the FBI showdown with the Branch Davidian cult. Although the horror elements are not as pronounced as in the earlier film, Fraser's sheltered Darkly is in some ways like the young protagonist of THE REFLECTING SKIN, at sea in the world and looking for evil as the explanation for unfamiliar feelings rather than questioning his own upbringing. Constant comparison to Ridley's earlier film is valid since the viewer of that film follows the protagonist but does not share his point of view, instead witnessing just how he comes to the erroneous conclusion that his neighbor is a life-draining vampire and the tragedy that ensues from his well-intentioned efforts to fight what he believes is evil and threatening. Darkly Noon, on the other hand, no matter how sheltered his upbringing comes across as a creep at best and a nut at worst. The film's elements of magic realism are not pronounced enough for the viewer to "understand" his credulity in believing Callie is an actual witch rather than a homewrecker, no matter how focused Fraser's performance. While Judd had been a bland presence in studio movies in the years to follow, she seems to make more of the ambiguity of her character that the real tragedy is her desire to make a family out of what is available, innocently inviting Darkly in with the seeming acceptance of Clay who, however lustful, seems more childlike than Darkly (particularly with his seemingly genuine concern about Darkly's increasingly dark mood). Usually either a deliberately overwrought or grating presence in Lynch's films, Zabriskie here does conveys pain underneath her character's intolerant and ignorant views (which are here intended quite literally unlike the things THE REFLECTING SKIN's protagonist mistakenly takes literally). The film's surrealist touches seem forced, from an oversized show floating in the lake used as a funeral pyre to a traveling circus looking for direction out of the woods at the end. Just as THE REFLECTING SKIN's Midwestern America was actually Canada, THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON's deep south Eden is actually Germany's Black Forest and its coverage seems to put the truth to Callie's assertion that one "can walk as far into the woods as you have a mind to go." Although Ridley would not helm another film until 2009's HEARTLESS, he has been prolific elsewhere in the arts.

Released theatrically by Miramax, who had earlier picked up THE REFLECTING SKIN, THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON did not score the same accolades and disappeared onto home video after Turner Home Entertainment's fullscreen cassette, not even scoring a DVD release when Miramax was distributed by Disney and Buena Vista Entertainment. When Lionsgate finally put the film out on DVD in 2011, it was in the same fullscreen master which was watchable since the 2.35:1 film was shot in Super 35 but still disappointing. Letterboxed DVDs popped up overseas but they were all non-anamorphic and of poor quality. Transferred from a new 4K restoration of the original camera negative, Arrow Video's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray is in keeping with the grading choices made by Ridley for his 2K scan of THE REFLECTING SKIN with very bright, sweltering, and super-saturated colors, but this seems to have always been the intent since the highlights are hot without nearly clipping and detail remains in the natural scenery, the woodwork and worn plaster under the yellow paint, and sweaty skin. The Dolby Stereo soundtrack has been conservatively remixed in 5.1 for a DTS-HD Master Audio track while the original mix is retained in LPCM 2.0, and English SDH subtitles are included. The synthesized and instrumental score of composer Nick Bicât (STEALING HEAVEN) is also isolated on an LPCM 2.0 stereo track that also includes some never-before-heard extended and unused cues, as well as the two songs from the film co-penned by himself and Ridley. Currently, this release is for Arrow's American side only but it plays in Region B players as well.

The film is accompanied by a new audio commentary by director Ridley who draws attention to the film's dystopian sci-fi undercurrent in the form of throwaway lines about how the world outside the forest is going to hell, as well as the theme of "fundamentalist entitlement." He notes that the opening sequence of Fraser stumbling through the woods was shot in pieces over four weeks of shooting anywhere that they found a nice backdrop, and that the original plot of land where they intended to build Callie and Clay's farm was unusable when it became inhabited by a rare species of bird. He had seen and liked Fraser in SCHOOL TIES while Judd was suggested to him by casting director Victoria Thomas (BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA). He also discusses the film's style, including the use of the same yellow he painted the Wyeth-like wheat fields of THE REFLECTING SKIN for the interiors of the house as both "alarming and soothing" and the psychological effects of combining the complementary colors of yellow and blue in the same shot.

Worth watching is "American Dreams: Inside the Mind of Philip Ridley" (20:43) which looks at both THE REFLECTING SKIN and THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON, his themes of retribution and self-delusion, the influences of Malick and Tarkovsky, PSYCHO and NIGHT O THE HUNTER, and East Londoner Ridley's anti-nostalgic conceptions of a mythic America through pop iconography and the darker aspects of the country's history during the same periods. In "Eyes of Fire" (22:14), cinematographer John de Borman recalls that he had got his start shooting horror films like UNMASKED PART 25 and DEATH MACHINE but really wanted to shoot arthouse films, and that THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON was his first opportunity. He discusses Ridley's eye as an artist, shooting on location in Germany, and how Ridley used demos from Bicât's score to influence the moods of the cast. In "Sharp Cuts" (16:08), editor Leslie Healey discusses his beginnings working under Terry Rawlings on Ridley Scott films like ALIEN before branching out on his own, with Ridley's film coming just after Scott's epic 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE. He recalls cutting on film and lugging the greater amount of editing equipment required around Germany with the shoot, and temp tracking the film not only with the Bicât demos but also Vangelis music from BLADE RUNNER.

"Forest Songs" (19:43) is an interview with composer Bicât who recalls Ridley not only taking his demos onto the shoot but also their desire to write original songs that would address the film thematically, including the song "Who Will Love Me Now?" which is a line from the film's climax. The aforementioned demos are not part of the isolated score track but presented on their own in three sections – "Callie #1" (5:57), "Darkly" (11:54), and "Callie #2" (5:08) – which Ridley and Bicât felt would help the cast find the appropriate mood for the scene more so than temp music. "Dreaming Darkly" (16:14) is advertised in the menu as a featurette made for the Blu-ray release of THE REFLECTING SKIN, the UK, Canadian, and American Blu-rays of which featured the longer "Angels and Atom Bombs" but it appears that this Blu-ray's featurette is made up of interview material from the same shoot with Ridley, Bicât, and actor Mortensen. Mortensen recalls taking the Method Acting approach to the role and not speaking throughout the entire shoot, and expresses the opinion that THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON is the best work of both Fraser and Judd. Ridley discusses the "adult fairy tale" aspect of the film and the theme of religious fundamentalism, and Bicât again discusses the on the set use of his demo tracks. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (2:48) and an image gallery (0:58). The cover is reversible, and the first pressing includes a slipcase and an illustrated collector s booklet featuring a new Philip Ridley career retrospective written by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. (Eric Cotenas)

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