Gagarine Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Gagarine Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 11, 2022

Once again the Universe seems to be wanting to teach me about various nooks and crannies in this big wide world, because just in the past few days I stumbled on one of those travel shows on television which was exploring some of the outskirts of Paris, including some relatively rundown neighborhoods (that nonetheless still had a lot of their own particular brand of "culture" going on), and then in short order I found myself reviewing two recent Blu-ray releases from Cohen Media Group, first Outside the Law and now Gagarine, both of which feature kind of downtrodden enclaves on the periphery of France's most famous city. In that regard, it may be salient to note that the television show my channel surfing uncovered actually got into some of the "identity" issues residents of some of these suburbs have, in that one person the host interviewed, a young man who was some kind of immigrant, stated that in France you have to decide if you're going to be "French" or hew to your "original" nationality. Outside the Law documented an immigrant family who very much clung to their Algerian roots, to the point that some of them engage in "anti-colonial" efforts to establish Algeria's independence. The kids in Gagarine all seem to be native French, though this is one area among several in the film which is pretty much elided, so that's not a "problem", though abject poverty and a completely dilapidated housing facility are.

Some opening archival video (see screenshot 19) documents the excitement surrounding the construction of Cité Gagarine in Ivry-sur-Seine, an area to the southeast of central Paris, in the early sixties, as the French Communist party wanted to show what a housing project for "the people" could be. The world's first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, actually traveled to the site to help open it, and the assembled multitudes seen in this old documentary seem thrilled not just to have a visiting celebrity, but to also have the "opportunity" the project itself seemed to represent. Fast forward several decades, and Cité Gagarine is a shoddy mess, though young resident Yuri* (Alséni Bathily) is on a mission to keep the facility intact. Yuri is good with fixing things himself, but he's on his own with an absent mother and no father, and has no funds to buy needed things like scores of replacement light bulbs and the like.

Yuri does have a good friend in another young male in the project named Houssam (Jamil McCraven), and Houssam actually encourages a young woman named Diana (Lyna Khoudri) in Yuri's attempts to rehabilitate the building in a probably futile effort to keep it from being demolished. And in fact the first half hour or so of Gagarine would seem to be an "antidote" in a manner of speaking for those sick and tired of seeing spoiled youths desecrate buildings with things like graffiti. Yuri actually manages to get a lot of things fixed, though when a state inspector comes, the site is still deemed unsuitable for continued use, and (as is the actual historical fact) it's slated to be torn down. That then thrusts Yuri into a predicament at least somewhat like immigrant families as shown in the aforementioned television episode and/or Outside the Law, at least insofar as he doesn't have secure living environment.

And it's here where Gagarine starts to really exploit an almost magical realist sensibility, though it has already hinted at that aspect with a number of tethers between Yuri and space travel and Gagarin in particular. Yuri ends up back at the supposedly abandoned and soon to be demolished Cité Gagarine, where he fashions what amounts to a "space station" in the disheveled building. I'm not sure the perceived connection between Yuri's spaceflight dreams and his much more earthbound reality is completely developed in an ultimately meaningful way, but the film is absolutely provocative in its presentational aspect, and the performances of the mostly young cast are quite moving.

Co-writers and co-directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh evidently started with a documentary short about the end of Cité Gagarine (it met its fate in 2019) before developing this almost whimsically fictional story built around the demise of the imposing edifice, and I really wish that that feature(tte) had been included as a supplement on this disc. I'm assuming that some voiceover at the end of the film is culled from interviews for that documentary, since it seems to reveal actual people delivering anecdotal memories about having lived there.

*Note: Several online data aggregators like the IMDb have the character's name spelled Youri, but both the back cover of this release as well as the subtitles spell it Yuri, which of course links the character all the more closely with the famous cosmonaut.

Gagarine Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gagarine is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group's Contemporary Classics imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I haven't been able to find any authoritative technical information on the shoot, and I didn't see any relevant logos in the closing credits roll, but I'm once again assuming a digital capture was finished with a 2K DI (as always with my reviews, if anyone can point me to reliable information, I'll happily update the review). Aside from just some very brief flirtations with banding (you may be able to see just a hint of a ripple in the screenshot showing the sun emerging from behind the tower in screenshot 12), this is a really appealing looking transfer that supports excellent detail levels and a rather interesting palette. A lot of Yuri's "dream" life as a cosmonaut is lit in deep red tones, and perhaps surprisingly fine detail levels really don't ebb that much despite the hue. A couple of nighttime scenes probably don't have a wealth of shadow detail, but even there in close-ups detail on facial features is typically excellent. The opening archival video (see screenshot 19) as well as a supposed home movie later in the film are closer to Academy Ratio, and some other archival video, while in 2.39:1, is pretty badly damaged.

Gagarine Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gagarine features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 audio options in the original French. The surround track definitely opens up the proceedings despite the fact that a lot of the film takes place in the cloistered confines of the cubbies Yuri carves out of the interior of the housing project. But the repeated allusions to space travel offer at least a burst or two of LFE for perceive "blast off" effects, and there are some really evocative placements of kind of "echo laden" ambient environmental effects in the otherwise abandoned Cité Gagarine once Yuri secretly moves back in. A suitably plaintive score also fills the side and rear channels nicely. Dialogue is delivered cleanly and clearly throughout. As is Cohen's standard operating procedure with their releases of foreign language films, English subtitles are forced.

Gagarine Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:41)

Gagarine Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The supposed connection between Cité Gagarine's namesake and this film's character of Yuri may be less than totally convincing, but this film is actually kind of daring in its own peculiar way, though larger questions about destitute populations and how to house them are left largely unanswered. Technical merits are solid, and Gagarine comes Recommended.