I don't remember where I heard about Renaissance or how it ended up in my Netflix queue, but it is one of those movies that I enjoyed enough to want to buy it immediately after watching it. If you read reviews of it, you'll hear a common theme which I agree with: story and character development are ho-hum, but these deficiencies are dwarfed by the incredible visuals. I would add that the foley and score are phenomenal as well (you'll thank yourself for a great sound system w/ subwoofer whenever one of the semi-invisible guys are on screen). I haven't enjoyed an animated film this much in a long time. While I'd recommend watching this film to almost anyone, I'd especially recommend it to people like Brent, Aaron, and Jason, who have an eye for... arty shit. If you guys haven't seen it, give it a look.

Anyway, so I want to buy it. However, I've vowed not to purchase DVDs anymore now that I have a PS3 (which includes a Blu-ray player). Now its possible that obscure French cyberpunk animated films won't make it to the front of the line for high-deffage, and there are movies out there that probably will never make it to Blu-ray. But, in fact, there is already a Blu-ray version of Renaissance available in Europe... of the French original. I'm all for watching foreign movies in their original language—subtitles don't offend me—but the existing Blu-ray cut doesn't seem to include either the English re-dub or any subtitles. (There is also a German HD-DVD available, but that's bad for two reasons.)

Speaking of the English re-dub, it is actually really good. I think it's telling to take a look at the caliber of actors who signed on to do the voiceover work. Ian Holm, Daniel Craig, and Jonathan Pryce are probably the biggest three names. But the point is that these are first-rate actors doing second-language work, which I think is a bit unusual. And if James Bond likes the film enough to do voiceover work on it, shouldn't you?

I'm not sure I want to pay 25 Euros for a movie that I can't understand. So is it a fair assumption that if it is already available in the format for wacky Region 2, that we'll get a cut here eventually? I don't know where to go to find these things out. I hope so; the high contrast and fine lines of this film will only be helped by increased resolution and a reduction in aliasing. And I really don't want to buy it on DVD if there is any chance of it coming to Blu-ray eventually.

Plus, writing this post helped me learn how to spell renaissance. Sweet.

Here's the UK trailer and here is eight and a half minutes of random scenes from the movie with the audio removed and replaced with a really irritating song.