Although quite a few Australian high schools read looking for Alibrandi during their school days, mine wasn't one of them. So the filmic adaptation was my first foray into the world of Jose Alibrandi.

Alibrandi novelist melina Marchetta took on the task of adapting her own novel into a screenplay for "janus" director Kate Woods and the result is a terrific little aussie film.

Taking on the lead role in her big screen debut is Pia Miranda (and doing a fabulous job I might add). The 2 older and wiser Alibrandi women, Jose’s Mother (Christina) and Grandmother (Katia)Are played by Greta Scacchi and Elaina Cotts, respectively

Jose, in her final year of high school is attending Saint Martha’s. A Private School. Not having a grown up with a father, and being Italian, Jose is often snubbed by some of the spoilt little rich girls, who do have fathers and aren’t quite so Italian. But Jose is a strong willed and independently young woman with good friends and so doesn’t let the snide remarks and general bitchiness of these snobs get the better of her.

Jose’s plan is to do well in her HSC, but this is somewhat disrupted with the arrival of her father, Michael (Anthony LaPaglia), who turns out to be just the boy next door!!.
Michael is unaware that His high school sweetheart Christina even had a baby before he nicked off to Adelaide with this family.

So not only does Jose have to work, a retuning father into her academically overloaded life, but Michael must now work a daughter into his.

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up?

VIDEO
While this is a lovely anamorphic Widescreen Transfer, the films low budget origins let it down just a little on occasions (but only on occasions..it's still very nice :).

The Level of sharpness seems to be on the safe side with a slight softening of the image, but stills maintains a pretty good amount of detail just the same (finer detail in clothing, like the school blazer is that little bit lacking).

Flesh tones are occasionally oversaturated, though I can’t say this bothered me too much considering colour saturation remained quite accurate for the most part and so this is only a minor problem

You’ll see the odd bit of dirt flecks which have stuck themselves to previous source prints, but the overall cleanliness of the print is pretty good, so is again a minor problem.

Though only running for 90 minutes Alibrandi has been spread over 2 layers of an RSDL DVD. The well placed Layer change occurs at 51:29. 

AUDIO

As it was released in theatres, the DVD also sports a Dolby Digital Encoded 5.1 audio mix (unlike most Roadshow DVDs, this on is missing a 2.0 mix)
Mainly dialogue driven, the 5.1 mix won’t give your system a full workout. Dialogue is clear and intelligible throughout. And shows no signs of lip sync problems. Alan Johns quirky but very well suited music score plays nicely across the front sound stage, with minimal surround usage.

EXTRAS
In terms of extras, the DVD certainly isn’t malnourished, but isn’t overloaded with them either, though does hold a few nice surprises

The Audio Commentary toplines the extras with Director Kate Woods, novelist and scriptwriter Melina Marchetta, and Producer Robyn Kirshaw lending there input.  I have to admit I found it a bit difficult at times to tell who was talking. At any rate it was still a very informative commentary offering some nice little insights into the making of this film. Definitely worth a listen

- Music Videos. Killing Heidi’s WEIR and LoLit’s Teenager OF THE YEAR. Both a very nice looking vids and are 16x9 with 2 channel sound.

- Delete Scene – Given the tone of this scene alone, it was wisely left out of the film. With an optional audio comm track included specific to this scene you can find out why it was left out.

- Photo Gallery – a few snapshots from the movie and behind the scenes (good to see some decent navigation buttons on this extra)

- Story Boards and Script excerpts – nice to see and there’s plenty of them (the films 2^nd best extra)

- Cast and Crew Bios

- Trailer 16x9 with 2.0 sound

Alibrandi is a terrific little Aussie film that did quite well at the box office and has been treated very nicely for it’s DVD release.

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver/Decoder: Marantz SR870 & Sony SDP-EP9ES
Speakers:-
     Mains: Quadral Phonolgue Gold Amun
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Surrounds: B&W 602
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 5th February 2001

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