A worthy upgrade !
dvdcompare.net
Given the prevalence of zealotry and intolerance in today’s
world, Island of Death still feels remarkably ‘fresh’, if one can
look past the garish 1970s fashions and recognise the rich vein of
black humour that runs throughout the picture. The film arguably
works best if you approach it as a comic book on screen: its
outrageous sense of excess is part of its satirical arsenal.
Despite Mastorakis’ suggestion that Island of Death is nothing
more than a ‘recipe movie’, it’s quite obvious that the film has a
very clearly-defined point-of-view: as a black comedy and a
satirical depiction of a form of fanaticism that, it seems, will
perennially blight the human race, the film works very well.
However, it’s certainly an acquired taste.
This Blu-ray release is very impressive, though there’s some wear
and tear to the audio track and the film’s fifth reel suffered
extensive damage that the restoration on this disc has gone some
way towards remedying. The new presentation certainly highlights
the strengths of the film’s photography. It’s a shame that the
commentary from Arrow’s previous DVD release hasn’t been ported
over to this Blu-ray disc, but regardless there’s a wealth of
contextual material on offer here which is worth the price of
admission alone: the huge documentary about Mastorakis’ career is
fascinating in its level of detail, for example. Fans of the film
will find this Blu-ray release a worthy upgrade over the previous
DVDs
...You
took a role in the film due to an actor not turning up. Can you
tell who the actor was and why he didn’t turn up?
The
actor, Vassilis Mavromatis, wanted 25,000 drachma (some 80 euros
by today’s rate) and I didn’t have that in the budget, so I said,
what the hell, I’ll play the part myself. I lived to regret it
thereafter, as I’m not cut to play any other characters than mine.
The only other professional actor was Nikos Tsachiridis as the shepherd who didn’t have any lines. Was that deliberately ironic?
Nikos
didn’t speak any English but he was brutally perfect for the
shepherd’s role, so I decided to make him mute. It played well for
the change in Celia’s life, where from so much communication with
her brother/lover/accomplice she found a long sought peace in the
mute’s deafening quietness. For Celia, that was the return to the
normal life she never had. And for Niko’s character, this was the
first time he got to have sex with a female, justifying the old
axiom that in his village men are men and
the sheep are happy.
When
the painter is decorating the outside of the church before he is
crucified you can see the letters, ‘MK’ in red painted on the
wall behind him. What did the initials stand for or were they
already there when you arrived to film the scene?
Glad you asked ‘cause I never noticed. See, it takes film critics
and film buffs to discover little things which the director
missed, proclaiming the movie to be in cult classic status when
the film makers had no such intentions. Is it too late to give
hell to my continuity girl, Nikki Clap? It was her first movie and
she cried a lot during the shoot but, never the less, went on to
become the best in her business, Steven Spielberg’s favored script
supervisor...