The Dressmaker - Blu-ray

Film: Many years ago, Tilly (Kate Winslet) was forced out of her small hometown in the Australian nowhere. As a child, she is accused of murdering a fellow student. Although she has made a career in fashion overseas, the dark veil of her past has never left her. And so she returns to solve the boy's death, hoping that it will also clear her reputation and her conscience. But neither the townspeople nor her mother (Judy Davis) welcome Tilly with open arms. Only when the women of the town fall for her fashionable creations and she brings a little color and flair to the gray desert town, the tide seems to turn. But the past never sleeps - and revenge certainly doesn't.

The Dressmaker is a very unusual film. The whole thing starts off like a very offbeat comedy, with an occasionally deep black humour on display. But then it turns into a dark drama with light crime elements and a biting revenge story. The tone seems a bit unbalanced: if you can laugh heartily one moment, the mood goes deep in the next scene. Actually, that shouldn't work. But director Jocelyn Moorhouse has somehow managed that in the end the viewer is nevertheless presented with a surprisingly harmonious overall picture that is simply fun to watch.

This is on the one hand due to the wonderfully quirky basic atmosphere, which is completely out of the mainstream. In it, then, the already good actors can be at their best. Kate Winslet is simply great as a vengeful beauty with a good portion of big city arrogance and is only outplayed by Hugo Weaving as a policeman with a weakness for beautiful women's clothes. And Judy Davis is also just great as the slightly crazy mother of avenging angel Tilly. Coupled with some delightfully quirky scenes and well-executed character moments, the ensemble here provides absolutely watchable acting cinema against a fascinating backdrop of Australia's No Man's Land.

While the film was a box-office hit in Australia, it fails to find its way into cinemas in this country, which is quite a shame given the visual language. However, one also has to admit that despite its qualities and high entertainment value, The Dressmaker is not a film for a mass audience. The humor is just too special for that and the discrepancy between the amusing and the dark moments is too big. As a viewer you have to be able to get involved with that. But if you can, there's nothing standing in the way of an enjoyable home cinema evening of the more unusual kind. And since Kate Winslet can convince in almost every of her roles, there is alone for her great performance as a scandalous sex bomb, which not only a sports event in the small town properly messes up, a clear: Absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The Blu-ray's picture is absolutely clean and has very good overall sharpness, bringing out smaller details well even in dark scenes. The color scheme looks very atmospheric, which is especially good in the outdoor scenes. The DTS-HD 5.1 mix provides a real amount of movement on the surround channels in some scenes, but primarily transports dialogue out of the speakers with good intelligibility. Good.

Extras: Bonus features include the trailer and other programming tips from the provider, as well as three promo featurettes about the story (approx. 3:42 min.), about the costumes (approx. 3:36 min.) and Kate Winslet (approx. 2:06 min.), as well as eleven sometimes quite interesting interviews with the cast, director, producers and costume designers (approx. 50 min.). Just under 13 minutes of uncommented B-roll footage from the filming rounds out the bonus program.

Conclusion: The Dressmaker is a very entertaining mix of deep black comedy with quirky wit and dark drama with light crime elements. The tone of this very particular revenge story changes very drastically at times, which doesn't always quite want to go together. However, the overall picture is right on and really enjoyable because of Kate Winslet and a wonderful Hugo Weaving. The Blu-ray presents the film in atmospheric picture and sound quality. Bonus features include the usual promotional material as well as a couple of insightful interviews. Overall, there is a very clear: Recommendable for this Australian hit movie

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp