Black Moon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Black Moon Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov November 8, 2017

Winner of Cesar Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Sound, Louis Malle's "Black Moon" (1975) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Curzon/Artificial Eye. There are no bonus features on the disc. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Lily

"Black Moon" appears in this ten-disc Blu-ray box set that was produced by Curzon/Artificial Eye.

The future. The world has gone crazy. Men and women have started annihilating each other while rats have learned to talk. An obese gray unicorn who has been missing for years has returned home.

Lily (Cathryn Harrison, Blue Fire Lady, Duet for One), a young girl, encounters a group of armed men who try to kill her. She drives away and ends up hiding in a large house somewhere in the countryside. The owner of the house, Old Lady (Thérèse Giehse, Mother, and the General, Lacombe, Lucien), whose best friends are a talking rat and an old, seriously damaged radio, doesn’t seem to mind. She is fluent in English, German, and Rattish.

The house is also shared by Brother (Joe Dallesandro, Je t'aime moi non plus, Trash) and Sister (Alexandra Stewart, Day for Night, Spray of the Days), both named Lily, who spend most of their time fighting. Occasionally, however, Brother kisses Sister. She does not seem to mind, but they rarely talk. When relaxing, the two like to watch a group of naked children chasing a big pig around the house.

Lily attempts to befriend Old Lady but becomes distracted by the gray unicorn. She goes after the unicorn but repeatedly ends up in Old Lady’s room. Eventually, the fat rat Old Lady talks to becomes seriously upset by Lily’s persistence.

Armed men are occasionally seen around the house. When one of them is gunned down, Brother takes care of the body. Soon after, a beautiful eagle appears and Brother tries to kill it with a silver sword.

Tired of running away, the gray unicorn confronts Lily and warns her that if she does not leave him alone he would disappear for another 154 years. Enormously frustrated, Lily heads back to Old Lady’s room where, after a wild argument, she breast-feeds her.

Based on an original story by Louis Malle and Joyce Bunuel (legendary director Luis Bunuel's daughter-in-law), Black Moon is a truly surreal film that is next to impossible to describe with simple words. It is broken into numerous bizarre episodes seemingly linked by the presence of a young girl who, like Alice, gets lost in a Wonderland populated by strange creatures.

The Wonderland, lensed by the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist (Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, The Passion of Anna), is beautiful, dreamy. But it is a dangerous place, torn by violence and war, which the girl fears. This fear, which is felt throughout the entire film, becomes responsible for her vivid and intense dreams.

It is impossible to tell, however, where the dreams begin and end because they keep overlapping, suggesting that they might be part of something bigger, which the girl clearly does not understand. Naturally, this could be the reason why she keeps getting ‘lost’ and trying to befriend the strange creatures she meets -- she needs someone to explain to her what is happening.

Whether director Malle intended for his film to be deconstructed in a way that gives some meaning to the girl's dreams -- quite obviously, there is enough symbolism in them to at least try to do so -- however, is difficult to tell. It is also difficult to decide whether the film is actually about the girl and her dreams, as part of what makes it so fascinating to behold is the fact that very little in it makes sense.

*In 1976, Black Moon won Cesar Awards for Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist) and Best Sound (Luc Perini and Nara Kollery).

Black Moon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Louis Malle's Black Moon arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Curzon/Artificial Eye.

The release is sourced from a very recent restored master that was prepared by French label Gaumont and also used for this French release in 2016. I find it to be incredibly frustrating for a couple of different reasons. First, in terms of density and fluidity it is very clearly superior to the one that Criterion used in 2011 for the North American release of the film. Many of the daylight close-ups, for instance, show better delineation and cleaner edge definition. On a larger screen I think that most viewers will also see that the better density even gives the film a healthier appearance. Second, the overall quality of the actual master is also better -- there is better defined and exposed grain which ultimately is largely responsible for the more consistent density. Unfortunately, the new master is yet another example of a very poorly done grading job. Indeed, the key LUT values are off and as a result there is a dramatic shift in the primaries that has also destabilized entire ranges of nuances. As it often happens when these types of changes are introduced during the grading process the film's native dynamic range is now also compromised, and as a result there is plenty of that very familiar digital flatness that you can see on other similar recent restored masters (you can see examples of the flatness in screencaptures #4, 10 and 24). There are no traces of compromising sharpening adjustments. Also, it is very easy to see that distracting large debris, cuts, damage marks, flecks, stains, and all other standard age-related imperfections have been removed as best as possible. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Black Moon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: French LPCM 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

Black Moon is pretty much a dialog-free film, but there are a few lines that are spoken in English. Obviously, unlike the Criterion release this release has only a French dub. This isn't exactly a deal-breaker for me, but I think that the disc should have had an English lossless track as well. Other than that it is very easy to tell that the entire lossless French track has been remixed.

Black Moon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no bonus features on this Blu-ray release.

Black Moon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Louis Malle's Black Moon is a truly bizarre but beautiful film, definitely a product of its time. As it is the case with Bernardo Bertolucci's Partner and Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie it is best if one does not overanalyzie it too much, as the film is clearly meant to be experienced, not understood. This release is sourced from a recent restored master that was licensed from French label Gaumont, but I find it quite frustrating because it is color-graded in a way that I think changes the entire identity of the film.