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Cult Epics has done very well by Radley Metzger’s work with their line of Metzger blu-rays.  In fact, they have a racked up a rather his­toric achieve­ment with their disc of Camille 2000.  This has been a prob­lem­atic title on video for many years and this disc’s pro­duc­ers have finally assem­ble a disc of this title that not only looks great but also offers the viewer an insight into what is the most roman­tic of Metzger’s films.

Until the Cult Epics blu-ray, video trans­fers of Camille 2000 have always suf­fered from a few prob­lems: either they’ve been edited or they’ve suf­fered from weak, washed-out look­ing ele­ments (Schlockmania encour­ages its read­ers to check out Nathaniel Thompson’s account of Camille 2000’s tor­tured home video his­tory at Mondo Digital).  Cult Epics has not only improved on past incar­na­tions but has also made the film avail­able on blu-ray in two ver­sions: the the­atri­cal ver­sion and an extended edi­tion incor­po­rat­ing an added ten min­utes of scenes.

The the­atri­cal cut was used for this review and the results are pretty impres­sive.  The neg­a­tive ele­ment used here suf­fers from per­sis­tent speck­ling but is impres­sive in every other respect: the col­ors are rich, the detail is razor-sharp and the over­all look is vibrant while retain­ing a gen­uine cel­lu­loid appear­ance.  The mono audio is free of defects, offer­ing a nice clear sig­nal that uses the Piero Piccioni score to beau­ti­ful effect.

Cult Epics has also assem­bled a proper set of director-inclusive extras for this disc.  Things begin with a com­men­tary track fea­tur­ing Metzger, mod­er­ated by film his­to­rian Michael Bowen.  Filling two hours of air space would be a chal­lenge for any­one but Metzger and Bowen get through it with sur­pris­ingly few dead spots.  Bowen keeps Metzger primed with ques­tions and the direc­tor is a genial, forth­com­ing sub­ject.  Topics cov­ered include the film’s long and involved cast­ing process, how work­ing in Italy allowed Metzger to max­i­mize his bud­get and the com­plex diplo­matic issues of shoot­ing erot­ica in the late 1960’s in a for­eign country.

There is also an “On The Set” fea­turette that incor­po­rates a lot of home-movie footage taken dur­ing the pro­duc­tion.  Metzger nar­rates this silent footage: there’s a bit of over­lap with the com­men­tary but it allows him to expand on some pre­vi­ously cov­ered top­ics while intro­duc­ing new ones. Fans will love the on-set footage of the bondage party sequence.

Elsewhere, there is a restora­tion com­par­i­son piece that shows off how much of an A/V improve­ment this blu-ray is as well as a col­lec­tion of edited scenes.  The cut scenes are worth watch­ing, as they add back­story for the male pro­tag­o­nist and a pretty decent fist­fight that fleshes out his con­flict with another char­ac­ter.  Some of these cut scenes get their own iso­lated seg­ments, namely an alter­na­tive ver­sion of the “cube love scene” and what appears to be on-set footage of a striptease sequence that is pretty intense.

Trailers for Camille 2000, The Lickerish Quartet and Score round this pre­sen­ta­tion at.  The Camille 2000 trailer is par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing because it sim­ply a series of stills set to Piero Piccioni’s music.  All in all, this blu-ray of Camille 2000 gives view­ers the best-ever pre­sen­ta­tion of this film on home video and adds fur­ther value with qual­ity extras — and this makes it a must for any seri­ous Metzger enthusiast.