Two brothers, the wealthy Vincent and the working-class Clay, have met after seeing each other at their father’s funeral. Vincent decides to setup and murder clay in a very elaborate way but Clay doesn’t die…but he also can’t remember who he is or was …
SUTURE is written, produced, and written by Scott McGehee & David Siegel. They entered the film in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. The movie is very Hitchcock-esque with the odd elephant in the room that Clay and Vincent look alike. Dennis Haysbert and Michael Harris obviously look nothing alike but the idea is that the film is viewed from your personal perspective. As the filmmakers have stated before, NORTH BY NORTHWEST influenced the movie, which is another plot about mistaken identity. Haysbert is incredible as Clay, slowly trying to remember what happened to him, as the world around him feels more and more foreign.
I really enjoyed this film and the overall dark tone. You pretty much know how the plot will turn out from the jump but the movie somehow makes you forget that you know what happened. You find yourself drawn in with your eyes glued to the screen.
Cast
Dennis Haysbert – Clay Arlington
Mel Harris – Dr. Renee Descartes
Sab Shimono – Dr. Max Shinoda
Dina Merrill – Alice Jameson
Michael Harris – Vincent Towers
David Graf – Lt. Weismann
Fran Ryan – Mrs. Lucerne
John Ingle – Sidney Callahan
The transfer is a 1080p AVC presentation.
The film is in black and white to really hit the noir feel hard. The grain is consistent and the lines are clean. The clarity helps keep the images separated and creates excellent monotones with solid contrasting. The blacks look rich and inky with very few artifacts or errors in the transfer. There was a small amount of crushing in some of the lower-lit scenes but it isn’t distracting at all. Overall, this is a really great transfer.
The audio is an English LCPM stereo mix.
The 2.0 mix is excellent. It has exactly the feel the film needs with clear voices, a respectable score, and strong effects. The bass is deep but, aside from the score, is barely used. This is mostly because it doesn’t need to use it. There are no issues or problems that were noticeable and another win from Arrow.
-Audio Commentary with Scott McGehee, David Siegel, and director Steven Soderbergh
-Lacerations-The making of: A nice 32-minute documentary about the film from connection to completion.
-Deleted scenes
-Birds Past: David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s short film who journey to Bodega Bay like the film BIRDS but also talking with people about the Hitchcock classic.
-Still Gallery
-US Theatrical Trailer
-European Theatrical Trailer
Disc Details
1 Blu-ray Disc
Running Time
96 mins
Edition Ratings
Not Rated
Region Coding
Region A
Video Resolution
1080p AVC MPEG-4
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio Mixes
English LCPM Stereo 48k
Subtitles
English SDH
SUTURE is incredible. It is beautifully filmed and does have flavor of a Hitchcock film. Take that and mix in a little OUTER LIMITS or THE TWILIGHT ZONE and you would be spot on with the flavor of what to expect. The video has been restored properly and I love that the grain is on the film. If this movie had anything other than a 2.0 mix, I think it would lose something by adding channels it doesn’t need. The release has a good documentary on making the film and the commentary with the filmmakers & Soderbergh is well worth a listen. Overall, this is a great movie and release. I highly recommend picking this one up.
