The quality of the DD remix is very high and allows audiences to really enjoy the powerful score of Shostakovich. They include two original Russian tracks (a mono and a DD 5.1 remix), plus English and French two-voiced (male and female) voice-overs, encoded in six-channel Dolby. The variety of audio tracks in the DVD is amazing. However, to be objective, I should note that some indoor scenes became slightly over-contrasted after the remastering, which made the actors’ faces gleam like torches. The video allows the viewer to fully appreciate Kozintsev’s use of light: the play of shadows in richly contrasted black and white images, the gloomy northern landscapes of the Estonian shore where the shooting took place all the visual effects serve to create the very atmosphere of ‘Denmark, the prison’. The most important achievement of this release is the quality of the film’s digital remastering.

We have to thank Russian Cinema Council (RUSCICO) for preparing this two-disc release RUSCICO provides many high quality films, both Russian classics for the international audience, as well as foreign masterpieces for the Russian public. To my knowledge, this is the first digitally restored copy of the film. The fact that Kozintsev’s masterpiece appeared on DVD, with restored video and audio, is absolutely thrilling. The film has won several international awards, including the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival,and has become a classic in the world of cinematography, having secured Kozintsev a place in the history of the Hamlet canon.

Made in Russia, region-free.Grigori Kozintsev’s Hamlet was released in 1964.

Kozintsev hamlet full movie