6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Biopic of notorious French singer-songwriter and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, adapted by Joann Sfar from his graphic novel. Starring Eric Elmosnino in the title role as the chain-smoking Jewish iconoclast who flouts authority at every turn, the film traces his life from his childhood in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris to his rise to success in the 1960s and relationships with French icons Juliette Greco (Anna Mouglalis), Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta), France Gall (Sara Forestier) and Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon).
Starring: Éric Elmosnino, Lucy Gordon, Laetitia Casta, Caroline Tillette, Doug JonesDrama | 100% |
Foreign | 72% |
Music | 21% |
Biography | 19% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Biographical films are hardly ever models of accuracy. Lives usually don’t fit neatly and squarely into the prerequisites of a screenwriter’s requirements and frequently changes, large or small, need to be made to achieve some sort of dramatic coherence. Sometimes the changes are quite small in the overall scheme of things (Raging Bull and Patton spring to mind, at least in terms of relatively contemporary biographical films), while at other times facts are thrown by the wayside in order to advance questionable agendas (I’m on record decrying the outright falsifications in Frances, which took me years of research to unravel). Typically, though, biographical films (especially those made in Hollywood) tend to gussy up their subjects, over glamorizing them (Cole Porter was no Night and Day Cary Grant) in order to make them palatable to the paying public. The fact that Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life bears such a provocative soubriquet might lead some to believe that this is yet another massively fictionalized attempt to lacquer on a patina of respectability and iconization to a figure who was at the very least rather controversial in his heyday (more about that later), but nothing could be further from the truth. While Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life plays a little fast and loose with the historical record, what it really does is inject something that is all too rarely experienced in biographical films: a sense of playfulness.
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films and Universal with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is an extremely sharp and appealing looking high definition presentation that benefits immensely from Sfar's whimsical approach to his subject and from some ravishingly beautiful cinematography by Gillaume Shiffman. The childhood sequences are often suffused with a gorgeous amber hue and despite being sometimes rather dimly lit shadow detail and fine detail both remain very strong. The film repeatedly has extraordinary depth of field and superior clarity, and the palette is extremely well saturated and accurate looking. There is some borderline crush evident in just a few seconds of this transfer, specifically in a couple of extremely dark bedroom scenes where blacks dissolve into one another. Otherwise, though, this is a stellar presentation that beautifully reproduces a very inventive looking film.
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life features two lossless audio options, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo fold down. Both of these soundtracks present dialogue and copious examples of Gainsbourg's (and others') music in a bright and clear fashion. There's not an overabundance of what most would consider immersion, though on a subtle, almost subliminal, level there is indeed discrete channelization, especially in some of the crowded club scenes where Gainsbourg tickles the ivories. The music sounds fantastic throughout this film, with problem free reproduction of some of the most iconic pieces in Gainsbourg's oeuvre. Fidelity and dynamic range are both excellent throughout.
Chances are many, if not most, of you reading this review have either never heard of Serge Gainsbourg or only have a slight idea of who he was. In France he's considered both a national hero and (by some, anyway) a national disgrace. Joann Sfar obviously errs on the side of the former, given the subtitle with which he appends his film, but that's okay in the long run. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life adequately peers into its subject's tortured psyche and even if it ultimately doesn't come up with any satisfying answers, it is at least asking the right questions. This is one of the most blatantly inventive film biographies in recent (and maybe not so recent) memory and even those without one whit of interest in Gainsbourg or the French music and Arts scene of the mid-twentieth century may find themselves unexpectedly fascinated by this film. With fantastic video and audio, and some very appealing supplements, this release easily comes Highly recommended.
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