7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Early one morning Valerie has to tell her unemployed boyfriend Remi that she is pregnant. She has decided to keep the child, but they argue whether they should break up or not. That same morning Valerie starts working in room service at a smart hotel. The film follows the routine of Valerie bringing breakfast to the guests, Valerie constantly trying to phone her mother, and Valerie's relations with the other staff.
Starring: Virginie Ledoyen, Benoît MagimelForeign | 100% |
Drama | 14% |
Romance | 11% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
French: LPCM 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of
The Benoit Jacquot Collection.
La Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave, is a perhaps singular movement in the history of film, even if many of its supposed
proponents would argue about whether there was an “official” movement at all. It’s hard to think of another example of a group of
filmmakers crafting a series of films that revolutionized both content and (probably especially) form so viscerally as did iconoclasts like
François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard (and what’s really frightening is that these two titans, along with others in the New Wave
whatever it was, were critics to begin with—yikes!) Maybe the Abstract Expressionists, or even the Americans who would
later be identified (ironically by the French) as film noir adherents, could be afforded this same radical status, but the New Wave was
so revolutionary and trendsetting that it seems to stand alone, a monolithic presence not just in its native country, but in the entire
annals of cinema. That said, the fact that the New Wave looms so large in France’s history may have led to certain categorization issues for
some French filmmakers who followed in the wake of the Wave, including Benoît Jacquot, a man whose birthyear of 1947 was only one year
before The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo, one of the first critical analyses that gave birth to the New Wave, was
published. That ostensibly should place Jacquot at least partially in a post-New Wave generation, since many of the movement’s most iconic
films came out in either the late fifties or early sixties (e.g., Paris Belongs to Us, The 400 Blows, Breathless
, Shoot the Piano Player), while Jacquot himself didn’t
really get started helming feature films until the seventies. However, Jacquot’s early career included an extended apprenticeship under one
of the more lustrous (if sadly lesser known) names from the New Wave, Marguerite Duras, a director in her own right who is nonetheless
probably best remembered for having written Resnais’ classic Hiroshima mon amour. Perhaps due to that connection, as well as to some almost ineffable elements that waft
through Jacquot’s films at times, some folks have tried pigeonholing him as a New Wave phenomenon, but Jacquot, while anarchic in his own
deliberate way, is more of a formalist than some might typically associate with New Wave sensibilities, and he has in fact even mounted the
same kind of historical epic (Farewell, My Queen)
that was a particular thorn in the sides of some of the postulants populating the pages of Cahiers du Cinéma back in the day. (It
should be noted that Jacquot’s “take” on the historical epic is typically insouciant at times, perhaps indicative of the fact that he probably
read some of the barbs aimed at this genre by some of the 1950s French critics.) Jacquot has been curiously underserved on Blu-ray, with
only 3 Hearts appearing in addition to the aforementioned
Marie Antoinette drama domestically on disc, but Cohen Film Collection is ameliorating that issue with a new release that collects three of
Jacquot’s 1990s efforts together.
A Single Girl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. All three films
in the The Benoit Jacquot Collection have
been sourced from new 2K restorations, and all three offer elements that are virtually damage free in terms of nicks, scratches or other similar
issues.
There's a bit more of a verité ambience on display in this film than in the two other films in the Jacquot set, and that may offer at least the
perception of increased softness as times, as Valérie tools around the often quite dark and shadowy hallways of the hotel where she's begun to
work. There's some slight but recurrent crush at times where elements like Valérie's black hair merges with shaded backgrounds. Some of the
exterior location footage also looks just slightly softer at times than the bulk of the presentation. The harsh glare of fluorescent lights in rooms
like the kitchen in the hotel offer extremely bright sequences where the image commendably never looks washed out. Detail is often excellent,
especially in the many extreme close-ups Jacquot employs throughout the film.
Three additional screenshots in positions 4-6 are available in The Benoit Jacquot Collection Blu-ray review.
A Single Girl features an LPCM 2.0 track in the original French, one which offers some brief but vivid bursts of energy when Valérie ventures out of doors, but which tends to more consistently exploit ambiences like the slightly hollow sound of the cavernous kitchen where Valérie gets room service orders ready for those staying at the hotel. Dialogue is rendered very cleanly and clearly. The brief use of some Dvorak string music sounds clear and precise as well.
Fans of the French New Wave who haven't yet experienced the films of Jacquot could probably find no easier entrée into the director's work than A Single Girl. The film is built out of seeming minutiae, but it ends up building up some significant momentum, even if Jacquot potentially squanders some of it by tacking on a perhaps needless coda. Technical merits are generally excellent, and A Single Girl comes Recommended.
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