It's here!
Palindromes is now available in 4k on BD and UHD from Radiance Films. This is their first UHD release, by the way. And since its announcement,
as we covered in our last post, there have been a couple changes. Radiance
later shared some changes to the specs, specifically that their UHD would not include Dolby Vision or any HDR (because MoMA didn't restore the film with HDR in the first place), but it would have a 5.1 mix rather than stereo and another special feature: an interview with actor
Alexander Brickle, who played the little boy Peter Paul.
I've got the limited edition 4k UHD/ BD combo pack right here (you could also purchase just the 1080p BD version by itself), so let's fire it up and check it out! And while we're at it, let's see how it compares to the original 2005 DVD from Wellspring Media,
DVDExotica-style (click the screenshots to see them in full resolution):
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2005 Wellspring DVD top; 2025 Radiance BD middle; 2025 Radiance UHD bottom.
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Wellspring presented the film at 1.79:1, essentially full 16x9 with a very slight, single letterbox bar along the top. Radiance corrects this to the exact aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which basically restores a very little bit of extra information along the sides. To its credit, the original DVD was anamorphic, free of interlacing and generally looks pretty similar to the new 4k scan. The colors are slightly darker and more natural, but if you weren't doing a direct comparison like this, you probably wouldn't notice the distinction. But if you zoom in close to Mark's face, for example, the DVD clearly has a more washed tone. And the boost in clarity is considerably more obvious. The film always had a bit of a low-fi look with chunky grain, but there's more detail and nuance to discern in the new scan. And the DVD just barely hints at the natural film grain structure that's not made obvious on Radiance's discs.
Wellspring gave us a choice of stereo or 5.1 mixes, which Radiance boils down to just the 5.1. But that's fine, since the stereo sounds like little more than a basic mix-down anyway. And Radiance bumps their track up to a lossless DTS-HD. Radiance also adds optional English subtitles, which Wellspring had cheaped out on.
For extras, Wellspring had nothing but a non-anamorphic trailer.
Radiance restores it to proper HD, and adds several more important
features. Most notably is a new on-camera interview with Todd Solondz,
conducted via webcam by Heather Strong, who did the visual essay on
Radiance's previous BD of Welcome To the Dollhouse in 2023.
Palindromes gets a visual essay, too, this time by critic Lillian Crawford, and then there's that aforementioned interview with Brickle, which is audio-only and plays over clips of the film. That's it for on-disc stuff, but if you go for the limited (to 3000 copies) edition, it also comes with a 40-page full-color booklet, one of Radiance's signature obi strips and reversible artwork. It's absolutely the definitive way to own
Palindromes on home video!
