The Woman with the Five Elephants

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Synopsis

Winner of the Sterling Award for Best Documentary at Silverdocs, The Woman with the Five Elephants unravels the mystery behind the life and work of the world's greatest translator of Russian literature. A revelatory investigation into language, meaning and the tides of history.

Picture 8/10

Cinema Guild presents Vadim Jendreyko’s documentary The Woman with the Five Elephants on DVD in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on a dual-layer disc. The image has been enhanced for widescreen televisions.

Shot on standard-definition digital I was actually surprised how good this film does look. It remains sharp and manages to present some distinct details rather clearly, renders colours rather nicely, and actually has a very minimal amount of artifacts present other than some jaggies on the edges of objects. Overall, despite the limitations of the equipment of the film used, it looks amazingly splendid.

Audio 8/10

The German Dolby Digital 2.0 track here also offers a pleasant surprise. Voices are clear and the movie’s score fills out the sound field in a rather haunting manner. There’s some great depth and range to it despite its documentary roots. Another pleasant surprise about this release.

Extras 5/10

A disappointingly sparse edition, Cinema Guild includes a couple of supplements starting with 24-minutes worth of deleted scenes, which actually present Geier at work, talking with a class, and talking about Dostoyevsky. I actually found these aspects of the film the most interesting parts so it’s a shame that more of this material didn’t make it. Of course there is really so much to the film and her life that some things obviously had to get trimmed, but at least they’re included here.

The disc then comes with the film’s theatrical trailer and then a number of other trailers for other films released by Cinema Guild.

Most interesting, though, is the inclusion of the 28-minute short film Portrait, directed by Sergei Loznitsa in 2002. The piece, made up entirely of black and white static shots of various peasant farmers in their traditional clothing across the disappearing Russian countryside, is very unconventional, filled with long static shots but it’s a fascinating document of farming life. It’s an interesting inclusion for this release since I can’t see much of a relation between this film and the feature film on the disc. Still, a nice inclusion by Cinema Guild.

And unfortunately that’s it. Short of possibly an interview with the director or more deleted material from the film I admittedly can’t think of much else to add, but in comparison to some of the company’s other releases (The Strange Case of Anjelica, Putty Hill, and Everyday Sunshine to name a few) it does feel a little sparse.

Closing

Don’t let the synopsis fool you; this is an incredibly captivating film and Svetlana Geier makes for an unlikely yet intriguing subject. Though I’m sure some will question some of the choices she’s made during her life she’s lived a full life, experienced some awful things while having to endure both Stalin’s rule and then the Nazis after moving to Germany, and yet she came out of it thanks to language. But where the film becomes even more fascinating is when she talks about the nature of language and when she’s working on her translations (the title’s five elephants refer to her large undertaking of translating five of Dostoyevsky’s works from Russian to German.) I was actually a bit upset the film didn’t contain even more of this material since a good chunk of it focuses on her younger life, but still it’s a nicely constructed document of the woman. And despite the slim nature of the supplements, Cinema Guild deliver a strong DVD presentation for the film, and it does come with a high recommendation.

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Directed by: Vadim Jendreyko
Year: 2010
Time: 93 min.
 
Series: Cinema Guild
Release Date: March 10 2012
MSRP: $29.95
 
DVD
1 Disc | DVD-9
1.78:1 ratio
 (Anamorphic)
German 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles: English
Region 1
 
 Deleted Scenes   Theatrical Trailer   Bonus Short: Portrait (2002, 28 minutes), an award-winning short film from Russian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa