{"id":30544,"date":"2025-01-28T17:30:42","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T01:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=30544"},"modified":"2025-01-28T17:30:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T01:30:42","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-weak-spot-1975","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=30544","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: WEAK SPOT (1975)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This \u201cLimited Edition\u201d Blu-ray from Radiance Films is\navailable for purchase on January 28th.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is a great week for Blu-rays of underseen but marvelous\nclassics. Weak Spot<\/em> (1975) aka La Faille<\/em> is the latest arrival\nfrom Radiance Films, and it\u2019s another winner. The co-production between France,\nItaly and Germany was shot in Greece and is a striking political thriller that\nwill evoke a sense of fear and paranoia in any viewer. Perhaps the most disturbing\naspect of it may be the fact that the events depicted now seem like something\nthat could easily occur in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shot in Greece, the story is set in a country run by\nextremist, right-wing colonels. Forty-something travel agent Georgis (Ugo\nTognazzi) walks into a bar and bumps into a stranger. Moments later, he is\narrested by men in suits. They take him to a police station, where he is\ngrilled for being part of an anti-government movement. Knowing nothing and\nunable to answer any questions, he is passed on to an Investigator (Michel\nPiccoli). The agent is told to take Georgis by car to the capital for further\nimprisonment and questioning. Georgis attempts to talk to the agent and\nunderstand why he has been taken, but the Investigator doesn\u2019t want to answer\nquestions. When their car breaks down in a seaside town, they\u2019re forced to\nspend time together and wait for repairs to be completed. The travel agent and\nofficial do start conversing and getting friendlier until the Investigator\nstarts questioning his own beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little information is given about the characters, who meet\nas strangers under stressful circumstances and slowly form a strange bond as\nthe story progresses. In this case, the lack of details is perfectly\nappropriate in setting up the story and keeping viewers on edge. One thing is\ncertain\u2026 the Investigator and his cohorts are serious threats and Georgis is\nhaving his life torn apart for no discernable reason at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s all chillingly handled from the opening scenes, which\ndepict a man running from agents and falling to his death. The icy government\nfigures are very quick to state that since their suspect fled, the individual\nmust have been guilty. When Georgis is questioned, there is no way for him to\nprove his innocence. His answers are always twisted around so that there is no\ncorrect response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The movie does allow for something of a power shift as the\nmen find themselves stuck in a scenic locale. As a salesman, Georgis can turn\non the charm and even poke fun at the agents\u2019 stiffness. One of the themes in\nthe film is that the government and agents are regularly boasting about their\nmasculinity and virility. However, they are constantly emasculated by their\ncaptive and look spiritless and particularly awkward when they are actually\ntalking to women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is all as viewers wonder about all of the characters,\nwho they are and what is really occurring. It\u2019s a dark picture, so you can be\nassured that there is no happy ending here. The movie simply reveals the\nweaknesses that these agents possess and how they are using their position to\nforce others into complying with their orders. Without being explicit and\ndespite the best efforts of the hero, the journey ends up being about\nidentifying weaknesses and using it to both dehumanize people and turn them into\ncruel followers of an authoritarian agency. This is a very well-acted and\ncompellingly upsetting tale.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image quality on the disc is very strong. For this\nBlu-ray, the original negative was scanned in 4K resolution. It looks very\nclean and while this is a movie based around conversations between characters,\nwith only minor chase sequences, everything looks impressive and the Greek\nlocations are very sharp. Naturally, the seaside sequences are impressive and\nserve as a nice contrast to the ugliness occurring in the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Blu-ray also contains a couple of nice bonuses. The\nfirst is a film historian commentary that sings the movie\u2019s praises. He notes\nthat the picture is incredibly tense and paranoia-inducing because of the lack\nof detail about the men. In this oppressive regime, one is never sure if\nstrangers walking by or characters the leads interact with are actually\ninformants for the government. At times he exaggerates some of these elements,\nbut much of what is being suggested is accurate and adds to the uneasy atmosphere\nof the movie. He also goes into production details and events Europe was\nenduring at the time. The speaker makes a great argument for the film being\nremarkably powerful and one of the best of its kind. He also wonders why this\nmovie, after receiving some acclaim, has been forgotten in recent\nyears.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, you\u2019ll get a snippet from a television\ninterview with Michel Piccoli, who plays the Inspector, talking about the movie\nand his thoughts on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An excellent and really welcome bonus is a nearly half-hour\ndiscussion with a music authority on the feature\u2019s score, which was composed by\nEnnio Morricone. The speaker gives an enlightening discussion about how it was\ncobbled together quickly and features a few re-imaginings of pieces from the\ncomposer\u2019s oeuvre. This was a relatively low-budget movie, but Morricone liked\nthe filmmaker and decided to help him out between projects by quickly putting\nsomething together. Despite the slapdash approach, it is a very strong score\nand serves the film well. The expert goes into different soundtrack LPs and CDs\nthat were released and also mentions other projects by Morricone that are\nlesser-known but important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disc also contains a booklet with writing on the movie,\npress pics, as well as cast and crew details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weak Spot<\/em> is a very strong political thriller that\nreally exposes how horrific an extremist right-wing government can be, while\nalso showing that their actions are, in part, due to personal insecurity and\nattempts trying too hard to present an untrue ideal and image of their gender.\nThis Blu-ray from Radiance Films comes highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This \u201cLimited Edition\u201d Blu-ray from Radiance Films is available for purchase on January 28th. This is a great week for Blu-rays of underseen but marvelous classics. Weak Spot (1975) aka La Faille is the latest arrival from Radiance Films, and it\u2019s another winner. The co-production between France, Italy and Germany was shot in Greece and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":30552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[106,2928,7104,7798,8220,8609,16234,16584,24055,24056,24057],"class_list":["post-30544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-106","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review","tag-european","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-greece","tag-political-thriller","tag-radiance-films","tag-weak-spot","tag-weak-spot-blu-ray-review","tag-weak-spot-review"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}