Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Betty Blue Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 20, 2012

French director Jean-Jacques Beineix's "37°2 le matin" a.k.a "Betty Blue" (1986) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Australian distributors Umbrella Entertainment. Unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this Blu-ray release. In French, with imposed yellow English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Betty

Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 37°2 le matin a.k.a Betty Blue is the type of film that could never be made in America - for a number of reasons. One of them has to do with the fact that in America romantic films cannot be explicit. There can be plenty of lovemaking in them but under the sheets, away from the camera. Another reason is the fact that the main protagonists are also ordinary people who lead ordinary lives. They make as much love as they can and do not try to change the world. They are not on the run, they don’t have any lofty ambitions, and they aren’t planning to kill anyone. They just happen to have found each other and realized that they were meant to be together. In other words, there is no good reason to tell their story. Finally, the film is comprised of various fragments, all of which are in fact memories, which do not have conventional endings.

The memories belong to Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade, Killing Zoe, Léon: The Professional), a young man who fixes things in a seaside community in the south of France. He is in a relationship with Betty (Béatrice Dalle, Clubbed to Death, Trouble Every Day), a beautiful girl who likes being naked. They live in a bungalow that has a bad, a table, some chairs, and plenty of books scattered all over the floor.

While arguing with Zorg, Betty accidentally discovers a manuscript he has written and becomes obsessed with it. Shortly after, the two torch their bungalow and head to Paris, where they get a room in a house owned by one of Betty’s childhood friends, Lisa (Consuelo de Haviland, The Unbearable Lightness of Being).

Lisa is young, beautiful, sexually frustrated, and excited to have Zorg and Betty around her because they make her feel alive. A couple of days after they move in, she comes home with Eddy (Gerard Darmon, The Tit and the Moon, Asterix and Obelix Meet Cleopatra), who owns a small pizza parlor and loves red wine. The two couples have plenty of fun together.

When Eddy’s mother dies, he asks if Zorg and Betty would be interested in running the family’s piano store in the country. They immediately agree and leave Paris behind. Eventually, Betty tells Zorg that she is expecting a baby.

Years ago, Betty Blue struck a chord with me because I was in a relationship with a woman who completely changed the way I lived my life. In a way she was like Betty, relentless, demanding, inspiring. Our relationship lacked the drama that enters Betty and Zorg’s relationship during the final third of the film, but there was a time when we felt like them, ready to risk everything, living life to the fullest. We were not experimenting, what we did simply felt right.

Most people have such experiences - obviously, not as intense and certainly not as tragic as Betty and Zorg’s, but there is always one that they vividly remember when they grow older. In Betty Blue, Zorg recalls the time he spent with his "other half", the one woman that made life worth living for him. She wasn’t perfect or easy to tolerate, but she completed him. That’s all.

Lebanese composer Gabriel Yared's (Camille Claudel, The English Patient) soundtrack, a mix of beautiful sax and piano solos, is legendary.

There are two official versions of Betty Blue. The shorter theatrical version runs at approximately 116 minutes. The longer director’s cut (version integrale) of the film runs at approximately 185 minutes. In the theatrical version not only various scenes but complete memories are simply missing.

None: In 1987, Betty Blue was nominated for Oscar Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Betty Blue Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080/50i transfer, Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Australian distributors Umbrella Entertainment.

This interlaced high-definition transfer is far more preferable than the one Cinema Libre used for their Blu-ray release of Betty Blue in the U.S. While it is far from flawless, it does not have that very distracting extremely smooth TrueMotion-esque filtering that has been applied to the U.S. high-definition transfer.
Generally speaking, detail is quite good, while clarity, particularly during the daylight sequences, is dramatically improved (when one compares this Theatrical Version of the film to the Director's Cut, which Australian distributors Madman released on SDVD quite some time ago). Edge-enhancement is never a serious issue of concern. There are no traces of severe degraining either (see screencapture #19). However, a few artifacts pop up here and there. Some light motion judder is also visible from time to time Lastly, there are no large cuts, debris, or damage marks to report in this review. All in all, if interested in adding the Theatrical Version of Betty Blue to your collection, I strongly suggest that you consider Umbrella Entertainment's release, not Cinema Libre's release. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. However, the high-definition transfer it uses is encoded in 1080/50i. Therefore, you will only be able to play it in North America if you have a player that can convert 1080/50i to 1080/60i. Because 1080/50i is not a standard that is supported in North America, the disc will be marked in our database as Region-B "locked").

Betty Blue Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc: French Dolby Digital 2.0. For the record, Umbrella Entertainment have provided imposed yellow English subtitles for the main feature.

Like the U.S. release, this Australian release also comes only with a modest lossy track. As far as I am concerned this is disappointing news because Betty Blue has arguably one of the best soundtracks ever done for a French production. This being said, there are no serious technical issues to report in this review. The dialog is crisp, stable, and clean. The English translation is good.

Betty Blue Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this Blu-ray disc.

Betty Blue Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It took quite a long time for the Director's Cut of Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue to appear on DVD in the U.S. Years before Sony Pictures released it, I imported the Australian DVD release by Madman, which I still have in my library. I have a feeling that we will likely go through the same cycle again, this time waiting for a Blu-ray release. Let's hope that either Gaumont or Madman bring it to Blu-ray soon. I am sure the wait will be well worth it. If you wish to see the Theatrical Version of Betty Blue, I think that this Australian release is the best one currently on the market.