Review of Fiesta

Introduction

Ok, a quick confession first. Readers may know that my experience of French films has been rather hit and miss over the years. I once had a bit of a dig at François Truffaut for bringing agony and depression to my French A Level studies. We had to watch many of his films, and the ones selected weren`t really designed to appeal to those in the 16-18 age bracket.

However, I did love Le dernier métro, and am older and wiser now, so prepared to approach these French back catalogue titles with an open mind...

Fiesta is set in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, and follows the story of 2 people at war - a schoolboy who is called up to fight, and a war veteran who is tired of all the fighting, but knows no other way of life.

Video

A reasonable but non-anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer. It`s pretty clean, and isn`t particularly tarnished by grain, dirt and dust. The main problem is just the lack of an anamorphic transfer, typical of the lack of care that seems to get shown for these more obscure titles on DVD.

And we get a print with burnt-in subtitles, which is not really the way to do things in this day and age.

Audio

An average DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, everything is audible, and there`s nothing more to say really.

Features

Rien (unless you count the trailer, which long ago gave up being seen as an extra).

Conclusion

A dull, heavily stereotyped and simplistic film. Simple characters who can be easily worked out within minutes, and everything is laid out for the audience on a plate. Here`s what`s going to happen next, this is why we should be doing this, no ambiguity, no need to think, just follow what we`re saying and everything will be explained simply to you. How dreary, boring, predictable, tedious. I didn`t enjoy this film.

An average video and audio transfer and no extras make this one for collectors only (if anyone actually wants to collect this film!)