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Mute Witness AKA Snuff Movie AKA Stumme Zeugin AKA Немой св
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Paul Lewis (12th August 2024). |
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The Film
 Mute Witness (Anthony Waller, 1995)  It’s fair to say that throughout history, art has demonstrated an enveloping fascination with death and what could loosely be labelled as “documentary” depictions of violent death. Théodore Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa” and “The Severed Heads,” the latter painted directly from Géricault’s close studies of decapitated heads during the French Revolution, are prime examples. Since the 1960s and 1970s, filmmakers have extended this focus on death within art through numerous fictional pictures that examine the phenomenon of “snuff” movies (ie, filmed depictions of real death created for circulation as, essentially, underground pornography). Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), Snuff (1975), Roger Watkins’ Last House on Dead End Street (1973), Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle in America (1977), Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (1979), David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1982)… all of these explore “snuff” and the mythologies that surround it. (It’s perhaps worth noting that a number of these films were inspired by possibly apocryphal rumours of “death films” produced by Charles Manson’s followers, and the explosion of home video formats during the 1970s and 1980s.)
Common to many of these films about “snuff” is the association of filmed recordings of violent death with “exotic” locales. “The film that could only be made in South America… where life is CHEAP!” screamed the tagline for Snuff. Journalist Yaron Svoray’s expose of the underground trade in snuff movies in the 1997 book Gods of Death offers a globetrotting narrative of Svoray’s attempts to track down the roots of a (potentially fictional) snuff movie ring. There’s little doubt that films about snuff movies almost invariably involve a large dose of “Othering”; when Laura Gemser’s globetrotting photojournalist Emanuelle goes in search of snuff, she finds it on the private island of a wealthy “fixer” with strong ties to both a corrupt regime in South America and a high profile US senator. (The more things change, the more they stay the same, it would seem.)  Anthony Waller’s 1995 film Mute Witness follows this paradigm to the letter, though in the case of Waller’s film, the setting is not South America but rather Moscow. Perhaps ironically Mute Witness was originally scripted with the intention of its narrative taking place in Chicago, but production moved to Moscow in an attempt to keep costs down. Most immediately, Waller’s picture sits alongside other 90s movies about snuff films that include the likes of Joel Schumacher’s 8mm (1999) and Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis (1996). Where the narratives of those two films feature characters (a private investigator and academic, respectively) investigating snuff movie rings, Mute Witness instead presents an almost Hitchcockian story that focuses on an innocent woman who stumbles across the production of a snuff film and spends much of the movie in flight from its creators.
At the heart of the film is Billy Hughes (Marina Zudina), a mute special effects artist working on a film being shot in a film studio in Moscow. One night, Billy is accidentally locked inside the studio, and she discovers two men – Arkadi and Lyosha – using the sets to make what appears to be a cheap porno with an unnamed woman. However, the scene turns violent, with Arkadi using a knife to murder the woman. Billy flees and manages to secure the help of her sister Karen (Fay Ripley) and Karen’s boyfriend, Andy (Evan Richards). Billy, Karen, and Andy attempt to alert the disbelieving authorities, but find they are pursued by the hoodlums, who are co-ordinated by a mysterious figure known as The Reaper (Alec Guinness). Alec Guinness’ scenes were filmed in 1985, in Hamburg, when Waller met the actor during the shooting of a television advertisement. Waller pitched an idea to Guinness and asked him if he would be willing to appear in a cameo role. Guinness kindly agreed, and allowed Waller to shoot the material involving Guinness’ character in his Rolls Royce, accepting no payment from the young director. Waller worked this footage into Mute Witness, employing a double for Guinness in additional shots used to “bridge” the 1985 footage with the surrounding scenes.  Guinness’ small role gives Mute Witness a sense of gravitas, but regardless of this, the whole picture hangs together very nicely. Much of the film is presented as an extended game of cat and mouse, with Billy very clearly positioned as the prey. Billy is made doubly vulnerable by her inability to speak. Waller apparently directed Zudina through an interpreter, because the actress spoke no English.
The film opens with a sequence in which a prowling camera enters a building through a window, heavy breathing on the soundtrack as the intruder whose point of view the camera shares stabs a woman to death. Then the camera pans across the faces of the film crew who are filming this scene as part of the slasher movie that Andy is in Moscow to direct. (This is the production on which Billy is working as a special effects artist.) We are forced into the realisation that we have been watching a film within a film. The staging of this sequence, its reference to slasher movie motifs, and the Pino Donaggio-esque score (by Wilbert Hirsch), particularly brings to mind Brian De Palma’s Body Double (1984). This metafictional aspect of Mute Witness comes to a head when Andy, directing the movie-within-the-movie, tells his lead actress that “This is not Chekov. You’re just another victim.” (Adding another layer of irony to this scene is the fact that Andy speaks to the actress via a Russian translator, Natasha, much as Waller needed a translator to direct Zudina’s performance.) Mute Witness goes to great lengths to remind its audience that Billy is not “just another victim,” but nevertheless there are strong elements of similarity between Billy and the “final girls” of many 1980s slasher movies and, in particular, Betty (Cristina Marsillach), the ingenue opera singer targeted by the murderer in Dario Argento’s Opera (1987). Like Betty, Billy is placed in various setpieces where she is cornered by the killers before using her ingenuity to escape.  Mute Witness, then, is a memorable and entertaining little thriller, if more than a little derivative of the likes of Hitchcock, De Palma, and Argento. As an exploration of the phenomenon of snuff movies, it’s a footnote to pictures such as Peeping Tom and Hardcore. The notion that the makers of a snuff movie would shoot in a film studio, on 35mm no less, seems to stretch credibility; but the film has an evocative sense of place. Zudina is excellent in the lead role. She’s sympathetic, vulnerable, and shrewd in equal parts. Fay Ripley is fine as her sister, Karen. Evan Richards is much less convincing as Andy, either on set as the director of the movie-within-a-movie or in the later scenes in which he and Karen attempt to rescue Billy. What sticks in the memory is the film’s focus on issues of communication and miscommunication, reinforced in the muteness of the protagonist, but also hammered home in the scenes in which the Anglophonic central characters struggle to alert the Russian authorities to the threat represented by The Reaper and his hoods.
Video
 Mute Witness is presented on Arrow Video’s new Blu-ray release via a 1080p presentation that uses the AVC codec. Filling approximately 26Gb on a dual layered disc, Mute Witness is uncut, with a running time of 96:38 mins.
The movie was filmed in the 3-perf Super 35 format, with its non-anamorphic photography cropped to 2.35:1 for its theatrical release. I’m not sure whether the film’s 4:3 VHS releases were presented open-matte or cropped from the 2.35:1 theatrical presentation, but the film was released on LaserDisc cropped to 1.85:1. The LaserDisc was erroneously marketed as preserving the film’s original aspect ratio. The presentation on Arrow’s Blu-ray retains the film’s true theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Detail is solid throughout, with some pleasing evidence of fine detail evident particularly in closeups. As with some other Super 35-photographed films that have appeared on HD home video formats, this presentation of Mute Witness has a pronounced – but completely organic – grain structure. Some of this is also presumably owing to the use of fast film stocks and low light photography. (Much of the film takes place in scenarios with minimal lighting.) Blacks are rich and deep in some scenes but less consistent in others – again, presumably owing to the use of fast film stocks. Midtones are consistently good, with some scenes exhibiting a fairly sharp drop-off into the toe of the exposure. Highlights are balanced and even. Colours are consistent and skintones are natural. The encode to disc is solid throughout, with no evidence of digital artifacting within the presentation. In sum, it’s a pleasing, film like viewing experience that is light years ahead of Mute Witness’s previous home video releases on the DVD format. NB. Some fullsized screengrabs are included at the bottom of this review.
Audio
Audio is presented via a LPCM 2.0 stereo track. This is clear throughout, with audible dialogue. The track demonstrates good range, particularly in the scenes that feature Wilbert Hirsch’s score (which as mentioned above, resembles the work of Pino Donaggio in a number of places, and in others seems inspired by Jerry Goldsmith’s work from this period). There are no issues with compression or sibilance, for example. Optional English subtitles for the Hard of Hearing are included, and these are easy to read and free from errors.
Extras
 The disc includes the following extra features:
- Audio Commentary with Director Anthony Waller. In this solo commentary, Waller talks about the processes involved in getting Mute Witness made. As the commentary starts, he notes that some of the anecdotes about the production “seem almost more implausible than the plot of the movie itself.” He discusses how the film came to be made in Moscow, and the difficulties in financing the picture. Waller reflects on some of the challenges involved in making the film in Moscow, particularly as a diptheria epidemic was sweeping through the city at the time. It’s a lively commentary track, and Waller’s recollections of the production are vivid. - Crew Audio Commentary. The disc’s second commentary track features production designer Matthias Kammermeir and composer Wilbert Hirsch, together with track moderator Lee Gambin, talking about their roles in the production. - “The Silent Death” (11:33). In a video essay written and produced for this release from Arrow, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas reflects on the relationship between Mute Witness and other films depicting “snuff.” Heller-Nicholas admits the complexities involved in using the “snuff film” label, and anchors Mute Witness within a more defined subgroup of films which focus on the intersection between “snuff” and pornography. - “The Wizard behind the Curtains” (23:23). In another video essay produced for this release, Chris Alexander discusses Mute Witness and its relationship with metafictional films about the business of making films. Alexander refers to Mute Witness as “Hitchcock meets Cannibal Holocaust.” - “Snuff Movie Presentation” (25:08). Shot on videotape, this is a video presentation assembled in order to encourage investment in the film. It features Anthony Waller speaking about his ideas for the project, which at the time was being prepared under the working title “Snuff Movie.” Other members of Waller’s crew are also interviewed, and the presentation is interspersed with clips from Waller’s other projects. - Location Scouting Footage (7:30). Videotape footage from the location scouting sessions that took place in Boston, Massachusetts, is presented here. (The film was originally planned to be filmed in Boston before production moved to Moscow.) - Alec Guinness Footage (2:41). This is the footage Waller captured of Alec Guinness, included in the finished film, which was filmed ten years before the rest of the picture was made. - Teaser (1:09). - Trailer (1:47). - Image Gallery (8 images).
Overall
 A solid thriller, with very overt nods to the films of Hitchcock and De Palma, Mute Witness is held together by a strong central performance from Marina Zudina. As Billy, Zudina is the point at which the slasher movie’s “final girl” and the Hitchcockian “wrong man” intersect. The film’s setting in Moscow is exploited within the narrative, and moving the narrative from Chicago to Russia inarguably adds an extra layer to the narrative – resulting in a picture that is as much about a failure to communicate as it is about the mythology (or reality) of “snuff” films.
Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release contains a strong, filmlike presentation of the main feature alongside some excellent contextual material. Please click the screengrabs below to enlarge them. 
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