The marriage of Oscar-winner Crash and the radio program This American Life.
If I do find one fault with the film, it is the fourth act, Love. Intentionally happy and upbeat to the end, it feels as though it betrays the tone of the other three stanzas. Perhaps the idea is one of hope, that no matter how badly life goes, there is a silver lining to every cloud. Perhaps, even, it is an issue of placement. Love is the least connected of the four leads and it shows by taking us out of the world previously created and dropped into a new one. The nighttime events of Sorrow and Pleasure, coupled with the majority darkness of Happiness, serve to set a motif of sorts for the film: darkness. Love is filmed in the brightest day, with pure sunlight peering into every corner. (It does have an exquisite ending, though, and Sarah Michelle Gellar has never looked more beautiful, fluttering in the wind.)
That may be the idea, that by allowing sunlight to shed light on all our issues, they don´t seem so bad or insurmountable as they did previously. That, no matter how dark the previous night, a new day will come and we are given the chance to start again.
VIDEO:
Presented in an anamorphic 2.40:1 ratio, "The Air I Breathe" is a solid transfer, considering the oft-repeated refrain in the commentary of "not enough money" and a 29 day shooting schedule. Blacks appear just a shade on the brown side while a fine layer of (intentional?) grain permeates every single scene. Colors are never completely muted, only toned down with the effect of making us feel the despair each character goes through. By design, no color pops off the screen while the transfer doesn´t pose any other problems.
AUDIO:
English 5.1 and 2.0 tracks are included, along with English and Spanish subtitles. I must admit to having a difficult time hearing a lot of the dialogue in the first three vignette´s, leading me to be unsure if the actor´s are speaking too low or if the audio mix was incorrectly put together. There are no major issues here, with the 2.0 track being slightly more forceful in the majority of the speakers while the 5.1 provides good occasional audio stimulation.
EXTRAS:
The crown jewel is an audio commentary with Lee, DeRosa, Director of Photography Walt Lloyd and Editor Robert Hoffman. It is a rich track, full of production stories, mishaps and full on plot explanations. The group rarely quiets down-in fact, I counted only two periods of appreciable silence. They tend to run out of conversation near the end, but it is to be expected. There is nothing but exuberant praise for the cast, crew and Mexico City location (doubling for Los Angeles). While the narrative is explained, Lee asks a rhetorical question in the finale when prodded for the meaning of the film. He never wanted to explain the vignette´s in gory detail; he simply wanted the audience to think about it means to them. Apply meaning to the emotions and characters from our own lives.
The disc starts out with a group of trailers for "Numb" (1:47), "The Color of Freedom," (1:49), "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1:34) and "Che" (1:56). Additionally, this film´s trailer (2:29) is included in the Extras menu.
Four deleted scenes are up next with none making a case for their inclusion in the final film. The first is a different beginning to the film, another is a new introduction to the character of Tony (Hirsch), an epilogue of sorts to the final vignette and a strange scene seemingly reliant on the flashback device to make sense. And just over two minutes of outtakes wrap up the section, mostly focusing on flubs and smaller mistakes.
PARTING THOUGHTS:
A non-involving final act can´t stand in the way of "The Air I Breathe," a movie woefully overlooked at the Oscars, considering it´s superior acting chops. Whitaker and Garcia are their usual dynamic selves while Bacon slips into his doctor role with the poise we´d expect. Delpy is never given anything meaningful to do, which is a shame, yet her snub is to the betterment of Hirsch, Gellar and Fraser. We know Hirsch is capable of great things (see "Into the Wild") so the acting surprises are really Gellar and Fraser. Luckily, they spend the majority of their screen time together, coalescing to form a beautiful pairing.
That may be the idea, that by allowing sunlight to shed light on all our issues, they don´t seem so bad or insurmountable as they did previously. That, no matter how dark the previous night, a new day will come and we are given the chance to start again.
VIDEO:
Presented in an anamorphic 2.40:1 ratio, "The Air I Breathe" is a solid transfer, considering the oft-repeated refrain in the commentary of "not enough money" and a 29 day shooting schedule. Blacks appear just a shade on the brown side while a fine layer of (intentional?) grain permeates every single scene. Colors are never completely muted, only toned down with the effect of making us feel the despair each character goes through. By design, no color pops off the screen while the transfer doesn´t pose any other problems.
AUDIO:
English 5.1 and 2.0 tracks are included, along with English and Spanish subtitles. I must admit to having a difficult time hearing a lot of the dialogue in the first three vignette´s, leading me to be unsure if the actor´s are speaking too low or if the audio mix was incorrectly put together. There are no major issues here, with the 2.0 track being slightly more forceful in the majority of the speakers while the 5.1 provides good occasional audio stimulation.
EXTRAS:
The crown jewel is an audio commentary with Lee, DeRosa, Director of Photography Walt Lloyd and Editor Robert Hoffman. It is a rich track, full of production stories, mishaps and full on plot explanations. The group rarely quiets down-in fact, I counted only two periods of appreciable silence. They tend to run out of conversation near the end, but it is to be expected. There is nothing but exuberant praise for the cast, crew and Mexico City location (doubling for Los Angeles). While the narrative is explained, Lee asks a rhetorical question in the finale when prodded for the meaning of the film. He never wanted to explain the vignette´s in gory detail; he simply wanted the audience to think about it means to them. Apply meaning to the emotions and characters from our own lives.
The disc starts out with a group of trailers for "Numb" (1:47), "The Color of Freedom," (1:49), "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1:34) and "Che" (1:56). Additionally, this film´s trailer (2:29) is included in the Extras menu.
Four deleted scenes are up next with none making a case for their inclusion in the final film. The first is a different beginning to the film, another is a new introduction to the character of Tony (Hirsch), an epilogue of sorts to the final vignette and a strange scene seemingly reliant on the flashback device to make sense. And just over two minutes of outtakes wrap up the section, mostly focusing on flubs and smaller mistakes.
PARTING THOUGHTS:
A non-involving final act can´t stand in the way of "The Air I Breathe," a movie woefully overlooked at the Oscars, considering it´s superior acting chops. Whitaker and Garcia are their usual dynamic selves while Bacon slips into his doctor role with the poise we´d expect. Delpy is never given anything meaningful to do, which is a shame, yet her snub is to the betterment of Hirsch, Gellar and Fraser. We know Hirsch is capable of great things (see "Into the Wild") so the acting surprises are really Gellar and Fraser. Luckily, they spend the majority of their screen time together, coalescing to form a beautiful pairing.
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[release]23154[/release]