Mute Witness appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. While not a terrible image, this one seemed oddly “off” much of the time.
Sharpness became the most obvious issue, as a lot of the film appeared somewhat mushy and soft. Plenty of shots delivered reasonable clarity, but matters tended to come across as less precise than one would anticipate.
No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt natural – albeit somewhat heavy – and print flaws remained absent.
Colors leaned toward a drab brown-influenced palette. The hues seemed dull and lifeless much of the time.
Blacks felt inky and flat, while shadows appeared a bit dense and thick. Perhaps the Blu-ray replicated the source accurately, but the end result nonetheless seemed awfully bland for a movie made about 30 years ago.
Although 5.1 audio acted as the norm by 1995, Witness only offers LPCM stereo material. That doesn’t seem like a shock given the film’s low-budget origins, but it nonetheless ensures a restricted soundscape.
Music offered pretty good stereo spread and effects broadened to the sides in a moderate manner. Don’t expect much ambition, however, as the soundfield often remained close to monaural.
Audio quality seemed acceptable but unmemorable. While speech felt intelligible, the lines could lean a bit edgy at times.
The synth score showed adequate range and clarity, while effects appeared reasonable accurate, though without much impact. Expect a mediocre soundtrack here.
This release includes two separate audio commentaries, the first of which comes from writer/director Anthony Waller. He delivers a running, screen-specific look at the project’s origins, story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, shooting in Russia, music/audio and other production notes.
Expect a pretty strong commentary, as Waller paints the shoot’s ins and outs well. We find plenty of good “war stories” about dealing with Russian crews and other useful tidbits in this high-quality chat.
For the second commentary, we hear from production designer Matthias Kammermaier and composer Wilbert Hirsch. Moderated by critic Lee Gambin, all three sit together for a running discussion of the project’s roots, Alec Guinness’s involvement, sets and locations, music, and a mix of other production topics.
Note the absence of “screen-specific” from that summary. While those involved occasionally reflect on the action as it occurs, this happens too infrequently for me to consider this a true screen-specific discussion.
Overall, we get a fairly good chat, albeit one that repeats some of the same info from Waller’s commentary, and also one with too much praise for the film from Gambin. Still, the track comes with enough useful material to merit a listen.
Called The Silent Death, we get a visual essay. It runs 11 minutes, 33 seconds and features author/critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
She talks about Witness as well as connections to the use of “snuff films” in cinema. At times this feels like just a list of movies, but we get a few insights along the way.
The Wizard Behind the Curtains spans 23 minutes, 23 seconds. It offers another visual essay, this time form author/critic Chris Alexander.
With “Curtains”, Alexander covers the subject of “movies within movies”. Like Heller-Nicholas, this discussion can seem like little more than a recitation of film titles, but Alexander also gives us a decent overview of these topics.
Under Snuff Movie Presentation (25:08), we get a reel created to generate investor interest in the project. It uses the film’s original title of Snuff Movie and comes with info from Waller, Kammermeier, producer Werner Koenig, VCL-Carolco Managing Director Datty Ruth, cameraman Laszlo Kadar, composer Hubert Bartholomae and sound/picture editor Peter Adam.
As expected, this promo piece largely exists to tell the money men why they should toss bucks at the project, so it comes with lots of happy talk. Still, it exists as a decent archival element, and we get some interesting glimpses of the filmmakers' student works.
A mix of Hitchcock and slasher flick, Mute Witness feels too derivative. It can’t overcome its lack of real creativity to become anything more than a lackluster thriller. The Blu-ray brings mediocre picture and audio along with a good array of bonus materials. I can’t find much about this limp film to recommend.