I skimmed through The Chronicles of Vidocq the other day. It was the first directorial effort of former French vfx designer Pitof who is better known for helming the not-all-that-terrible Catwoman. It was one of the first movies to be shot digitally, using a Sony F900, the same camera used for Episode II. The picture quality is beautiful. I would have sworn it was film. They must have grained it up a bit. The color was nice and rich too. It shows that what we might think of as a 'digital look' is probably an aesthetic choice, not a technical limitation. The whole thing was shot with a really wide angle lens, almost a fish eye. Everything is framed very tight. Interesting look. Nice, very French visual effects. Nice production design too. For a second I thought it looked a lot like Delicatessen. Then I thought, no, I just made the connection because Jeunet is French. Then I found that Pitof did the fx for Delicatessen. The story itself is a like a generic TV detective show with a typical 90's suprise ending.
If there's anything this film reminds me of is Mirror Mask. They're beautiful films with a rich, European sensibility. But somehow, the reliance on visual effects makes the films come across as cheap. I'm not sure why. For me, Noise film looks inexpensive rather than cheap and somehow, that's preferable.
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