Fifi Martingale Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Fifi Martingale Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 16, 2026

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Time to Play: Films by Jacques Rozier from Radiance Films.

Blu-ray sets offering the complete filmographies of any given creator can tend to be pretty huge, even overwhelming, affairs, like Ingmar Bergman's Cinema and/or The Complete Films of Agnès Varda. That Varda set may be particularly a propos when discussing this (much smaller) set, since both Varda and Jacques Rozier were both prominent members of the French New Wave, even if neither arguably rose to the global fame heights of, say, Jean-Luc Godard or François Truffaut. If Varda either fairly or unfairly got some reflected glow from her long marriage to Jacques Demy, one way or the other even she, as arguably underappreciated as she's been, was probably better known internationally than Rozier, who has continued to kind of be the "bastard stepchild" of the movement, consigned by fate and (sorry) critical assessments to what is perceived as a lower echelon, even if that perception is manifestly undeserved. Rozier is a fascinating figure one way or the other, as his approach toward Nouvelle Vague was decidedly different than his contemporaries (notably Varda, in fact), and despite a decades long career, he only ended up making five feature films, all of which Radiance has aggregated for this new collection.

Francophiles with a particular interest in either French cinema in general or the French New Wave in particular may be forgiven if they think they've somehow stumbled into a film by another Jacques, namely Rivette, rather than Rozier, since this film, like so many of Rivette's outings, overtly plays on the dialectic between stage performances and film. This is another entry in Rozier's brief (numerically speaking) filmography that features a clearer, ostensibly less improvisatory, narrative than his first two films in particular, though there's still a lightness of touch and an undeniably farcical undertone here that might not be normally associated with Rivette, and there is certainly nothing like some of Rivette's almost excruciating running times to contend with. The playful "meta" quality on hand focuses on a theater company whose hit play is suddenly thrown into absolute chaos by the company's leader, known officially only as the Author (Mike Marshall), who for completely baseless reasons decides to completely rewrite the show mid-run.

That immediately sets up a series of comedic dominoes which ultimately introduces a would be Deus ex Machina, an actor named Gaston Manzanarès (Jean Lefebvre in his last major screen role) who, somewhat like Marilu Henner, has perfect recall and is is ostensibly able to handle the insane new pages getting handed out. Of course nothing could be that easy, and Gaston's personal peccadilloes start adding to the increasing chaos. Suffice it say that Art mirrors Life (or at least Film) here in another freewheeling finale that in its own kind of bizarre way mimics the samba celebration that caps Maine Ocean Express. Rozier obviously thrived on a certain amount of pandemonium, and that's evident both "on stage" and "on film" in this production.

Fifi Martingale Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fifi Martingale is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Radiance sent check discs for purposes of this review and so I'm not privy to any information on the transfer included in an insert booklet, but a prefatory text card before the presentation states "the 35mm negative was scanned in 4K by Cinematheque Suisse and the sound was digitised by Hiventy Laboratory from Dolby Digital sound on a MO- DISK produced in 2010". Despite being the newest film in the set, I frankly found this overall transfer to be the least consistently pleasing of the bunch, though it's an incremental disappointment. The palette is really gorgeously suffused throughout, with reds especially prominent, but the entire presentation struck me as being a tad too bright, something that can make blacks look a bit gray and which may tend to emphasize grain to the point that things can look a bit noisy in the darkest scenes. The entire film kind of offers a reddish tint aside and apart from production design choices, soemthing that can add a bit of a florid appearance to flesh tones. My score is 3.75.

Fifi Martingale Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This is the only film in the Rozier set with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. There's not really any gobsmacking surround activity per se, but there is some very appealing separation and directionality when, for example, a dialogue scene is taking place backstage and there's some kind of other activity (like music being rehearsed) on stage. Reinhardt Wagner's playful score is well represented throughout. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Fifi Martingale Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Jacques Rozier: From One Wave to Another (HD; 1:03:05) is a well done overview of Rozier's career by Emmanuel Barnault. This would actually probably be the best place in this entire set to start for those unacquainted with Rozier. Subtitled in English.

Fifi Martingale Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The "meta" side of things here may not be as constantly "in your face" as with some of Rivette's work, but that's probably a good thing. Still, this may not be instantly accessible to those without some knowledge of French farce. Technical merits are generally solid, though this had a less pleasing appearance than some of the others in the Rozier set. The documentary on Rozier on this disc is outstanding and a great introduction for the uninitiated. With caveats noted, Recommended.