Note: the screenshots featured here are taken from the standard definition DVD release of the film and should not be considered in any way representative of the actual quality of the HD DVD's transfer.

The Machinist is an interesting piece of work, to be sure. Although financed and produced by Spanish studio Filmax and shot in Barcelona, it primarily looks and feels like an American effort, taking its cue from recent thrillers like M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and Christopher Nolan's Memento.

The plot focuses on Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale), an industrial worker who hasn't been able to sleep for a year. Thin to the point of emaciation, some event in the past is clearly preying on his mind and preventing him from moving forward. He leads a monotonous life, his only human contact being with his unsympathetic co-workers, the waitress of the diner he frequents every night (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), and Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the prostitute he visits every night. One day, however, his life begins to change when a mysterious man, Ivan (John Sharian), begins to haunt him, and he starts experiencing bizarre and disturbing visions. Are they (and Ivan) merely figments of his imagination, or is something much more disturbing happening?



Writer Scott Kosar's only previous gig was the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it is fairly safe to say that The Machinist is a more substantial piece of work. Most impressive is the fact that the script, while intricately plotted, never talks down to the audience, assuming that viewers will be intelligent enough to decipher, with a minimum of prompting, what is actually happen once all the pieces of the puzzle are laid in place. Most importantly, Kosar never cheats, laying out the pieces required to solve the puzzle rather than simply pulling off a twist that could, in retrospect, have been worked out.

The film's look is impressive if repetitive (although arguably this is intentional and appropriate for plot that hinges on monotony). Reznik's world is consistently desaturated and blue-tinted, with the grainy film stock clearly establishing the bleak mood and pounding it home. While not the most original visual style ever put to celluloid (digital grading in general has, in my opinion, been severely overused since its relatively recent inception), it certainly works here.


Christian Bale's embodiment of Reznik is most impressive. He lost more than 60 pounds for the role, and is almost unrecognisable - a virtual walking skeleton. His appearance adds a great deal to the disturbing nature of the film and helps legitimate what would otherwise have seemed like a far-fetched notion. On its own, it would be difficult to believe that Reznik had not slept for an entire year, but his appearance makes it all too easy to believe that this man is seriously sleep-deprived and exhausted. Although she gets title billing after Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh is underused. The largely reactive role of concerned call-girl Stevie is no stretch for her, but she plays the part well and injects some sympathy into a bleak and hostile world.

The Machinist is a bleak but satisfying effort, well-paced and not outstaying its welcome. It marks a welcome return to the seemingly dying art of movies that take their time to establish a world and allow the audience to get to know the characters without feeling the need to provide an explosion every ten minutes. While it won't win any awards for originality, it is well-executed and gets a strong recommendation from me.


HD DVD Presentation

The Machinist constitutes several first for me: my first non-US HD DVD (it's Japanese), my first HD DVD from a distributor other than one of the major Hollywood studios (it's a Toshiba release), and my first HD DVD using MPEG4/AVC/H.264 as its compression format rather than VC1.

I was a little wary regarding this release given the mixed reports that have come through so far regarding Toshiba's Japanese releases, all of which have used MPEG4 rather than VC1. Essentially, MPEG4 has been characterised as an inferior format, and I was expecting to be a bit let down by The Machinist. I needn't have worried: it looks excellent, and in places is up there with Serenity in terms of detail. For the most part, the image is razor-sharp, and the grain, too, looks excellent. The Machinist is stylistically a very harsh film, with heavily desaturated colours and very pronounced contrasts. All of this is maintained with aplomb on the HD DVD.

Unfortunately, it is slightly marred by a few instances of unsightly edge enhancement. I should point out, however, that this was actually present when I saw the film at the cinema. It was the first time I'd ever seen edge enhancement on a projected film print, and it's indicative of the move towards using digital intermediates as opposed to conventional chemical colour timing in a laboratory. The fact that the entire film is stored on a computer gives technicians free reign to monkey with the image until their hearts content, and it does seem that they have gone way overboard with the artificial sharpening in some shots here. These are exactly the same shots that were affected when I saw it at the cinema, so it is the filmmakers themselves who deserve the blame for this rather than Toshiba.

In terms of audio, there is a choice of the original English or a Japanese dub, both presented in Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1. Naturally, I listened to the English variant, which is a very good track, and one that, at least to my ears, offers greater clarity than its counterpart on Tartan's standard definition UK release. The dialogue is always coherent, even when characters are mumbling, and the sounds of the various pieces of machinery at the factory where Reznik works are distributed across all the channels, while Roque Baños's Bernard Herrmann-esque score sounds appropriately rich. Unfortunately, none of this makes up for the fact that the sound is noticeably desynchronised from the video, constantly lagging behind it by a few frames. It doesn't absolutely kill the experience, but it does get pretty annoying if you stop to watch the actors' lip movements.

Japanese subtitles have been included for the film and extras. The film's subtitles can be disabled either on the fly using the remote control function or via the menu. Those corresponding to the extras, however, are forced.

On a side note, this HD DVD comes in a standard amaray (DVD-style) case, which is most annoying given that it's a completely different size from the rest of my collection.


Extras

The main bonus feature on offer here is a 25-minute piece entitled "Breaking the Rules". This is the same documentary that appeared on the various standard definition releases, and it's a watchable enough but not particularly remarkable look at the making of the film. It covers the usual issues - Christian Bale's dramatic weight loss, the failure to find funding in the US, the subsequent attempts to make Barcelona look like Los Angeles - and provides a decent amount of behind the scenes footage and on-camera interviews with cast and crew members, but it's all ultimately a bit superficial.

Also included are a collection of eight deleted scenes, which again are carry-overs from the various standard definition releases. They're interesting enough, but ultimately I suspect that the movie was well served by the decision to cut them. Unfortunately, the fact that only two of these scenes feature optional commentary by director Brad Anderson means that the bulk of them aren't really given any context.

Two theatrical trailers are also included - English and Japanese - and some cast and crew biographies in Japanese. It's a shame that the full-length audio commentary with Anderson that featured on both the US and UK standard definition versions was not included here, although, given that this release was intended for a Japanese market, it's perhaps not entirely surprising.


Overall

Toshiba have given The Machinist a decent enough high definition release, with a solid transfer. Unfortunately, the audio problems mar the viewing experience somewhat, while the fact that not all of the extras have been transferred over means that many people will want to hang on to their standard definition releases. Ultimately, though, it's nice to see a slightly more offbeat film getting released on HD DVD, which makes a nice change from the various blockbusters and romantic comedies that are showing up on the format in the US.

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