Fill 'er Up with Super Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Fill 'er Up with Super Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 27, 2023

Kind of interestingly, a couple of interview supplements that Radiance has included as bonus features on this new Blu-ray release of Fill 'er Up with Super mention how the film may not have attracted much audience support back in the day of its release due to following in the wake of one of the causes célèbres from that era of French cinema, Bernard Blier's 1974 opus Going Places, which coincidentally just passed through my review queue a few months ago courtesy of a new Blu-ray release from Cohen Media Group. Those interested in why these two films might be "linked" in a way may find some salient information in both my Going Places Blu-ray review and Svet's Going Places Blu-ray review of a much older Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber, but suffice it to say both films offer a "road trip" with male characters who are not always paradigms of "proper" behavior.

Cahiers du Cinéma Deputy Editor Charlotte Garson is one of those aforementioned interview subjects, and she spends around a half hour attempting to come to terms with a film that even she perhaps grudgingly admits doesn't have a "narrative" in the traditional sense, and therefore (this is my own perspective) may in fact be a series of vignettes very like those seen in Going Places. In this particular case, there aren't just two men in a vehicle traipsing through the European countryside, there are four, at least ultimately. As Garson gets into in her analysis, the film is kind of sui generis in that it stemmed from "improvisation sessions" held by the four principal actors (all of whom knew each other and had worked together before being approached by director Alain Cavalier to work on the project), which were then transcribed into an actual shooting script. As such, the dialogue and interactions between the four characters all have a rather "loosey goosey" ambience about them which in fact probably strongly suggests improv, even if it strictly isn't.

The ostensible "main" character here is a hapless car salesman named Klouk (Bernard Crombey, whose surname is spelled "Crommbey" in the credits). As the film opens, Klouk is shown trying to sell a vintage 1968 Porsche to a customer who is not "buying" Klouk's lines that everything about the car has been refreshed. As Klouk and this potential client head out on a quick (and disastrous) test drive, a vintage Chevrolet station wagon is seen pulling into the service area of the dealership, and that vehicle in a way soon becomes a central character itself, as Klouk is tasked by his superior with delivering the car to its new owner around a thousand kilometers away.

Klouk invites his friend Philippe (Xavier Saint-Macary) to join him, and eventually that pair "hosts" what amounts to a pair of hitchhikers, Daniel (Patrick Bouchitey) and Charles (Etienne Chicot). As is perhaps made evident by Garson's inability to really pin down what the film is "about", while there is some background given to these characters, including patently odd little bits like Philippe preparing the corpse of a young boy in a hospital where he works and later taking some voice lessons, whatever "context" the film provides mostly has to be gleaned almost by osmosis. Instead, the film coasts (no road trip pun intended) on a certain low key charm and occasionally raucous humor. As with Going Places, the men are not above behaving very badly (one character urinates on the bed of his former girlfriend and her new lover), something that may at least give a bit of an edge to what is often a kind of weirdly sweet but perhaps ultimately inconsequential journey.

Fill 'er Up with Super Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fill 'er Up with Super is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Radiance offers some but not a ton of technical information, with only the following blurb included in its insert booket:

Fill 'er Up with Super was scanned in 2K and restored and colour graded by Gaumont in 2018. Additional colour correction was performed by Radiance Films in 2022. The original mono soundtrack was restored by Radiance Films in 2022.

This is an appealing looking transfer that preserves a healthy organic quality with regard to grain, while also offering a generally robust looking palette. Things looked just a tad skewed toward yellow to my eyes at times, but there are still very strong primaries in particular in store, so if reds do tend to tilt toward orange territory as a result, it's not by a bunch. Garson gets into some of the "indie" flavor of Cavalier's choices in framings and the like, and as such, especially given the fact that swaths of the film take place inside an actual moving car, detail levels can ebb and flow somewhat. There are no major issues with regard to either age related wear and tear or compression hurdles.

Note: I received a Private Message from a member asking about an anomaly I've personally experienced with Radiance releases, so I'll mention it here. For some reason I haven't been able to divine, some (but not all) displays and/or players offer the Main Menu in what is evidently a version that is just slightly anamorphically stretched enough that the little "select" bullets next to the options aren't visible (in other words, the edge of the frame is directly to the left of the words "Play / Special Features / Setup" as seen in screenshot 20, with no additional room for the little dot next to each choice). You can still navigate through the options, you just have to keep track of how many times you've pressed up and/or down on your remote.

Fill 'er Up with Super Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fill 'er Up with Super features LPCM 2.0 Mono audio in the original French. There isn't an overly baroque sound design to this film, though there are a glut of ambient environmental effects on display courtesy of the road trip angle and what was in a very real way a kind of "fly on the wall" filming process. Musical interludes as in the brief vignette involving the vocal lesson reverberate without any issues, and dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Fill 'er Up with Super Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Friends First and Foremost (HD; 27:38) is an appealing interview with Bernard Crombey, who discusses his history with the other three main performers, as well as how they were approached by Alain Cavalier. He also gets into some of the disparities between how this film was received vis a vis the reception for Going Places. Subtitled in English.


• My Wife Lives in Fear (HD; 4:30) is a short documentary by Alain Cavalier featuring Etienne Chicot, Bernard Crombey and Patrick Bouchitey. Subtitled in English.


• It's a Full House (HD; 6:09) is a short documentary by Alain Cavalier starring Bernard Crombey. Subtitled in English.


• The King of the Bottle (HD; 8:33) is a short documentary by Alain Cavalier starring Patrick Bouchitey. Subtitled in English.


• Charlotte Garson (HD; 27:37) offers an analysis of the film by the Deputy Editor of Cahiers du Cinéma. In English.

Additionally, Radiance provides a very nicely appointed insert booklet which contains essays by Murielle Joudet and Évelyne Caron-Lowins, as well as an excerpt from a 2011 interview with Alain Cavalier, along with an assortment of stills, cast and crew information, and a page with transfer verbiage and disc credits.

Fill 'er Up with Super Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are some passing references here to socioeconomic classes, and that aspect combined with one "subplot" (if it can properly be termed as such) of a father trying to connect with his child after a quasi-divorce, as well as the overarching portrayal of the growing camaraderie between a disparate group of men, actually ended up reminding me of The Full Monty as much as Going Places. That said, as even Garson seems perhaps reticent to admit, there's not a lot of traditional narrative momentum in this piece, but it still has its own peculiar charm, despite a couple of provocatively shocking moments. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very enjoyable. Recommended.