DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer is a slight disappointment as background clarity is somewhat muddled. However, the animation design is absolutely striking, with much that is characteristic Bakshi. Sadly though, one wishes for more such characteristic moments: it is most unfortunate that Bakshi’s X-rated animated sensibility has been somewhat compromised here, perhaps in search of a wider audience. The animation has a truly bold sense of primary colour and a vibrant energy throughout, constantly playful and surreal in its incorporation of underground, mainstream comic book and ironically cutesy style influences. The Cool World itself is thus a stunningly realized combination of diverse animation and comic book styles. Set design is correspondingly stylized and grotesque, adding depth to the animated world that Pitt moves through quite convincingly. Of course the animation of female characters has a slyly erotic quality (always a hallmark of Bakshi) and the interaction of humans and cartoons has an unusual sensuality (if not as well developed as one would expect). There is also a nice parallel between the lurid colours of the Cool World itself and those of contemporary Las Vegas, a comment on Vegas as an American fantasy realm. The scenes of eventual collision between animated and real worlds is amusing although perhaps owes something to not only comics but the popular Ghostbusters ethos.
Sound
The sound transfer is unusually vibrant in Dolby Digital 5.0. Bakshi is also known for his ability to incorporate music into animation (at its zenith in the generational study of American Pop) and Cool World film indeed updates such endeavours. Hence, pulsating visuals often have an accompanying fast scoring. This scoring and music selection combines period swing (for the 1940s scenes), heavy rock, energized dance music and jazz rock, making for a quick auditory mix in a film that mostly unfolds at a rapid pace, engaging the ear as well as the eye. It is a fine transfer with dynamic directional effects fully capturing the anarchic, chaotic sense of the Cool World itself and building nicely from the sense of juxtaposition to that of impending collision. At times sound design is tellingly hallucinogenic, as when Pitt hears combat noises immediately after his bike accident (indeed this works as the first such linking of the animated realm to psychosis and the escape from a troubled and traumatic reality). The transfer has a directional melange of unusual sounds and exaggerated voices that is most enthralling as a remarkable demonstration of what might be termed a cartoon cacophony. Voices are always well pronounced and there is both awkwardness and pathos to Basinger’s sex symbol, ideal in the eroticism of the Cool World but ultimately floundering in the real world despite her effort to maintain the same sexy identity. read more
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