A Serious Man, Blu-ray (2010)

by | Feb 8, 2010 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews | 0 comments

A Serious Man, Blu-ray (2010)

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind
Studio: Focus Features/Universal 62106375 [2/9/10]
Video: 1.85:1 for 16:9 1080p HD
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Extras: “Becoming Serious,” “Creating 1967,” Hebrew and Yiddish for Goys, BD-Live 2.0
Length: 1 hour 40 minutes
Rating: *****

The Oscar-winning Coen Brothers have come up with another winner here, just as good as The Big Lebowski and Fargo. Their movies are different from anyone else’s, and this one is different from the rest they have done.  Harking back to their growing up in a Jewish community in Minnesota, the film might even be thought of by some non-Jews as racist, but their take on the frustrations of one man’s life there in 1967 will have Jews rolling in the aisles and the goys at least smiling ear to ear – unless all this is totally foreign to them.

The movie opens with a very odd Yiddish tale from 19th century Poland, filmed in B & W in 4:3 format.  The Coens made it up and it’s supposed to have some relation to the widescreen color film, but I thought for a time I’d walked into the wrong theater when I first saw it.  Poor Larry is a college physics professor living in a Minneapolis suburb, who is facing a raft of constantly mounting “challenges” in life. Among them a threatening revue of his tenure, his son’s upcoming bar mitzvah, a protest from a Korean student and his father regarding a failing grade, a would-be Nazi living next door, a sexy neighbor on the other side who sunbathes nude, his out-of-work brother Arthur with his sebaceous cyst living with them, The Columbia Record Club calling constantly because he inadvertently had ordered the monthly selections by not canceling them, and finally, his wife announcing that she had taken up with older and more sophisticated widower Sy Ableman and that Larry should move to a local motel.

One of the subtly funniest portions of the film is Larry’s searching for some answers to his predicaments in visits to a series of three rabbis – all completely different from one another.  Actually, he never gets admitted to the last of the rabbis, although his Jefferson Airplane-fixated son does.  The Coens discuss in the extras how they made use of an actual Minneapolis synagogue and its rabbis and members for the bar mitzvah scene, in which Larry’s son gets thru the pressure of his big event by getting stoned in the restroom.  The participants in the film were told the plot details and still cooperated with the Coens.

The setting and costumes are just perfect for the story; the Coens used a new tract home area that was being set up, with few trees, so it looked like a new development. The “Creating 1967” featurette explains that. In the main making-of featurette the Coens explain why this is their most personal film and what their vision for it was. ”Hebrew and Yiddish for Goys” is both educational and hilarious, as it shows various clips from the film in which characters use various Yiddish and Hebrew expressions, and defines them. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent.

 – John Sunier

Related Reviews
Logo Pure Pleasure
Logo Crystal Records Sidebar 300 ms
Logo Jazz Detective Deep Digs Animated 01