Finis Terrae Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

Finis Terrae Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 8, 2025

If you're a lover of etymology and especially the backgrounds of what might be called regional names, usages like Ultimate Thule in myth and literature and just the plain old place name of Thule can provide a wealth of exploratory opportunities. Kind of interestingly in terms of how Thule is typically described as being northerly, there's a fascinating correspondence between the Latin of this film's title and the actual (similarly northerly) region of Finistère, which was so named because whoever named things back in days of yore considered that particular location to be, well, the end of the earth. It is a rather desolate region, if an incredibly ruggedly beautiful one, at least as evidenced by this astounding and really astoundingly little known 1929 film from Jean Epstein.

This incredibly moody and layered piece might be thought of as a distant cousin to Hitchcock's early The Manxman, in that it depicts an insular community with lives built around the sea. In this case, the community is even more insular, and in fact for the first large swath of the film, there are only four characters, two older men and two younger men, all four of whom are on an island collecting seaweed, which they burn and then "harvest" the ash (this is all historically based and some of the film's quasi-documentarian content). A kind of stupid fight breaks out between the two younger guys over literally spilled wine, and one of them ends up developing a badly infected cut thumb from one of the broken wine bottle shards. This may all sound completely odd and too specific to really resonate, but there are any number of subtexts at play, and even without any delving into the actual narrative content, the film is (sorry, water pun incoming) awash in some of the most amazing visuals of that era of silent film that I've personally seen.

As is briefly discussed in some of the supplements on this disc, Epstein was a proponent of so-called photogénie, a term which deserves much further elucidation than either that supplement or this review can provide (and further investigation is certainly enthusiastically recommended, including reading Epstein's own essay on the subject included in the insert booklet), but the upshot is Epstein's visual approach is almost pantheistic and suffused with a near psychedelic ambience that gives the film a decidedly otherworldly feel, aside and apart from its completely unique location and general context.

Finis Terrae Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Finis Terrae is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment's Masters of Cinema imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Some introductory text cards before the presentation offer the following information:

Restoration completed with the support of the National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image in collaboration with the Cinémathèque française.

A quick closing credit (in French, so I'm translating as I'm able) also states the film was restored in 4K from the nitrate negative consreved by the Cinémathèque française, with the transfer done at the laboratories of L'Image Retrouvée in 2019. This is a really gorgeous looking presentation that does admittedly have a few signs of age related wear and tear, but which overall was either in fantastic shape or has been restored to appear so. The film's luminous, close to high contrast at times, black and white cinematography is rendered gorgeously here, with some sumptuous blacks and nicely modulated gray scale. There are any number of stylistic tweaks Epstein employs, including soft focus, slow motion, reverse motion, and downright hallucinatory material after the infection sets in and so detail levels, like the seas around the island, ebb and flow, as can clarity, more often than not intentionally I'd argue. Grain can be quite heavy but resolves without any issues.

Finis Terrae Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Finis Terrae features an LPCM 2.0 track offering Zoch Harev's new score for the film. I have to say I'm kind of ambivalent about some scoring choices. Some of the brass and what sounds like guitar (or similar) instrument can be quite moody and evocative, if deliberately atonal, but some of the strident reed and brass voicings, which seem designed to evoke fingernail on blackboard sonorities, started to bug me pretty quickly. I kept wondering what a Breton master like Alan Stivell might have done with this material. Nonetheless, the track boasts fine fidelity and no issues. Interestingly for a silent film, there are subtitles, in this case for some of the French textual material.

Finis Terrae Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Call of the Sea (HD; 17:32) features Pamela Hutchinson's thoughts on the film and Jean Epstein.


• Strangers in Strange Lands (HD; 20:32) is a visual essay by Eddie Falvey. There's a lot of interesting information about subtext and imagery here.


• Capturing the Real (HD; 11:03) offers Joel Daire's thoughts on Jean Epstein. Subtitled in English.

A nicely appointed insert booklet offers an interesting essay by Christophe Wall-Romana and an essential essay by Epstein himself called "On Certain Characteristics of Photogenie" from 1926. The insert sleeve has an inner print of a seaside frame from the film. Packaging features a slipcover.

Finis Terrae Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are any number of avenues (and/or sea channels) to approach Finis Terrae, which may indicate inherently at how multilayered and powerful the film is. Epstein still is almost ridiculously underappreciated, and this is certainly at least as distinctive an achievement as his much more celebrated The Fall of the House of Usher is. Technical merits are solid and the supplemental content (on both disc and the insert booklet) is excellent. Highly recommended.