542 Lilja 4-ever DVD+CD Sweden

PAL

This disc is encoded for region 2.

Audio: Great Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track that sounds a lot more dynamic than in the cinemas I visited. Rammsteins roars at you with their Mein Herz Brennt just like I always thought it should sound. Dynamic sound is also used to recreate environments (like a diskoteque) and portray emotions/ moods. It's interesting that orchestrated music is mixed rather low, while vocal music generally mixed higher. There aren't any real surround effects in this film, but the rear speakers are used for environmental sounds like cars driving by. It's of course also used for music. The subwoofer also get a lot to work with when it comes to music. This is certainly a lot more dynamic soundtrack than usual for this kind of drama. Certainly not well suitable for night watching, but most amplifiers/ speakers will have a "night watching" feature that you should turn on when you don't want to wake up the neighbours :). There's a couple of sounds that puzzled me a bit, a strange hi-pitched sound when Lilja enters her old home after her aunt has moved in. This sound is also audible in one of the flats in Sweden aswell. I think it comes from fluorescent tubes in the ceiling or a TV (or is supposed to simulate this sound), but it's a bit distracting. I can remember it from the cinema aswell, so it's not an error with the DVD production at least. When Lilja enters her flat in Sweden there's some low-bass rumble that I guess is supposed to be cars driving at the street below, but I think it could have been made a bit more distinct. Anyway, this was probably in the theatrical release aswell. If this soundtrack really is mixed more dynamic than the theatrical release is hard to say, but it at least sounds that way.
Video: Great sharp anamorphic picture – a Lukas Moodysson film never looked this good! :). Certainly a lot better than all the dust and dirt in my local cinema. Close-ups of faces look especially great. There's not really anything bad to say about this transfer, it's done at a constant bitrate of 7.68 Mb/ sec which seems a bit unprofessional, but anyway it looks great and they've got plenty of space for it. At around 28 min the picture seems out-of-focus, but that was of course a problem on the film itself. Apart from that I can't see any problems. Just as a funny note I think there's a goof when Lilja and Volodja walks to "Pentagon". They are talking with each other, but Lilja is more busy looking around her in all directions (especially at one point she is facing the camera smiling).
Special Features: Ehm, well. Nothing more than some text pages, the trailer and a photo gallery I'm afraid. But when the film is so great – do we really need anything more? The photo gallery consists of well known press stills, but there are a few "never-before-seen" aswell. The menus are simple, but fits the film well. For some reason they are in 4:3 format only. It's also strange they haven't taken the time to translate them to English, if you select English from the start menu you'll be taken directly to the film instead. The trailer is anamorphic, but with Dolby Pro-Logic sound (of mediocre quality) only.