Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Disorder Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 11, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of The Early Films of Olivier Assayas.

Irma Vep is probably at least arguably the best known film by Olivier Assayas, but as Assayas’ IMDb listing page makes clear, he has bounteous writing and directing credits going back to the late seventies. In what might be thought of as the “halfway point” between Assayas’ first credits and 1996’s Irma Vep, Arrow Video has aggregated two of Assayas’ efforts from the 1980s in The Early Films of Olivier Assayas. Both Disorder, which came out in 1986 and was Assayas' first credit as a feature film writer and director, and Winter’s Child, his second similar dual feature film writing and directing credit from 1989, offer intimate stories of psychological intrigue and at times just the hint of danger. They’re still probably formative works, and if they’re at least intermittently viscerally compelling, they may be more of a hit or miss property for some. That said, they may be of interest to anyone who, after having seen Irma Vep, felt their appetites whetted for more from this (then?) nascent auteur.

Disorder lives up to its title with a somewhat schizophrenic story that initially seems to be about one thing, but which then kind of weirdly darts off into a few detours. The film has a couple of stylistic flourishes which might appeal to fans of Irma Vep, including an opening sequence which rather nicely if disturbingly details the criminal activities of a pair of would be rock stars and the girlfriend they evidently share (hey, it's France, the place that invented the phrase ménage à trois). The trio (played by Wadeck Stanczak, Ann-Gisel Glass and Lucas Belvaux) breaks into a music store on an insanely rainy night in order to provide themselves with new instruments, but the robbery goes awry almost from the get go, leading to the death of the store owner. Now, some might rightly expect the rest of the film to play out as a kind of cat and mouse game between these three and some dogged if probably slightly addled police investigator, but instead the film focuses on the various levels of guilt felt by the participants, and how that spills into their personal and budding professional lives.

The film's first half hour or so I personally found rather riveting, but after a series of interpersonal relationships is detailed which includes a fair amount of sleeping around between various bandmates and their girlfriends, the film kind of descends into a soap operatic morass as the band starts to make it, but the central characters find themselves more and more at odds with each other. It's a strange kind of left turn the film takes, and I'm not sure it ever really clicks, especially after a generally quite involving introductory setup.

Disorder Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: I'm beginning the reviews of both films in this set with some general information before moving on to comments about each individual film.

Both titles in The Early Films of Olivier Assayas are presented on Blu-ray by Arrow Academy, an imprint of Arrow Video, with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.85:1. Both films begin with brief text cards stating they've been digitally restored, without offering much of any further information, and the insert booklet is similarly circumspect, offering only the following verbiage (which includes a couple of errors, as noted):

Disorder and Winter's Child has [sic] been digitally restored in 2K resolution from original film materials. Olivier Assayas supervised and approved the restorations. The films are presented in their original aspect ratios of 1.66:1 [sic], with original stereo sound [sic].

This is one time when I wish Arrow's typically informative blurbs about the provenance of the transfers had been a little more concrete, as "original film materials" can mean just about anything, and while I'm not suggesting this actually is the case and am only mentioning it to provide a general idea of how both of these look, I'm kind of wondering if "original film materials" might include a CRI, as both of these films exhibit some of the strange toning and palette skewing that are often seen in transfers culled from a color reversal intermediate. I therefore recommend those interested to carefully parse the screenshots included with each review to get an idea of how these look.

Disorder has a lot of low light photography, and huge swaths of the film have a very distinct blue undertone, both of which can tend to make an already pretty thick grain field look positively gritty at times. Fine detail can be minimal in many of these dark scenes, and crush is noticeable in some of the very darkest moments. A lot of the transfer looks a bit on the anemic side in terms of vividness, with some scenes almost approaching black and white territory. In brighter lighting conditions, things improve at least somewhat, with more warmth in the palette and noticeably better detail levels.

Disorder Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Disorder features an LPCM Mono track in the original French (with a few lines in English along the way). The film is graced with a really beautiful score by Gabriel Yared, which emphasizes strings and which sounds nicely warm throughout the presentation. Some of the "rock" music is bit more hackneyed, but sounds fine as well. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation, and ambient effects, as in the opening rainstorm, or a later car crash, also reverberate with sufficient force.

Disorder Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Both films are presented on one disc by Arrow. The supplements on the disc are as follows:

• Disorder Interviews:

  Olivier Assayas (1080p; 41:48). In French with English subtitles.

  
  

  Ann-Gisel Glass, Lucas Belvaux, Wadeck Stanczak, and Remi Martin (1080p; 18:02). In French with English subtitles.

• Disorder Trailer (1080i; 2:02)


• Winter's Child Trailer (1080i; 1:15)

Additionally, Arrow has provided another nicely appointed insert booklet.

Disorder Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Disorder has a fascinating opening act, but then the story just kind of dissipates into a morass of accusations and heated interchanges all spun out against the backdrop of a band trying to make it big in the music biz. It's all kind of strange, but Assayas fans may find the first half hour or so rather interesting, if not the rest of the film. Video is a bit inconsistent looking, but audio is fine, for those considering a purchase.