Andrei Rublev

Artificial Eye's Region 2 DVD is a double disc presentation, with it being necessary to switch discs half way through. While an inconvenience, this is presumably necessitated by the film's three hour plus length and one would assume that, were it possible to fit the film on one disc this would have been at the expense of sound and image quality.

Image quality is good, being derived from a restored and remastered print and enhanced for widescreen televisions. While scratches are frequently visible, they never reach distracting levels and are more than offset by a sharp, clear, well defined transfer. The brief colour sequence exhibits more damage, but again not enough to ruin one's appreciation.

The soundtrack, presented in 5:1 Dolby Digital, balances foreground and background, dialogue and score effectively.

Standard issue extras include profiles of the cast and crew, 15 in total, and 20 stills, a mixture of images from the film and behind-the-scenes shots.

Interspersed with the profiles are various trailers, for Tarkovsky's Mirror, Solaris and Stalker; Sergei Bondarchuck's War and Peace; Aleksander Askoldov's The Commissar; Konchalovsky's Siberiad; Mikhalkov's At Home Among Strangers, A Stranger Among His Own People and Leonid Gadai's The Diamond Arm.

Though often unintentionally funny on account of their over-enthusiastic presentation - all dramatic music, unconvincing English dubbing and Hollywood-style voice-overs - the mix on offer conveys something of the breadth of post-war Soviet cinema.

Other, Tarkovksy-specific extras are brief interviews with his sister, Marina Tarkovskaya, and with Yuri Nazarow, who played Rublev, and (colour) home movie footage from the film's production.

Tarkovskaya and Nazarov each have interesting things to say, though their segments, at five and two minutes respectively, are really far too brief to illuminate the director's work.

Note must also be made of the attractively designed menus.