Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray Movie Review

What's eating Raoul?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 28, 2019

There are any number of iconic French things that tend to age very well indeed — wine and cheese spring instantly to mind. Unfortunately, I’m not so sure that the same can be said of Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, a film which was at least a little controversial back in the day but which famously went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. But seen now in the context of the #metoo movement, not to mention other scandalous items like rampant reports of child sexual abuse, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs may seem more like the relic of a bygone age, which of course in many ways it is, despite the fact that it's of at least relatively recent vintage (1978). All of this may arguably take some of the "fizz" out of this particular concoction, but for those willing to wade into a story of what begins as a ménage à trois and which ends up as a ménage à quatre (with the "fourth" being a young, virtually pre-adolescent, boy), Get Out Your Handkerchiefs may still offer some passing, if also intermittently troubling, pleasures. Richard Peña of Columbia University tries mightily to "spin" some of these plot devices in his appreciation of the film included on this Blu-ray as a supplement, but even he doesn't seem to quite be able to bring himself to a full "approval" of some of these elements. It just may be that in this day and age whatever comic sparkle 1970s audiences saw in Get Out Your Handkerchiefs has been dimmed, at least for some, due to intervening events and awarenesses.

Raoul (Gérard Depardieu) and Solange (Carole Laure) are a couple having a meal at a restaurant, except Solange isn't eating much and Raoul is convinced her lack of appetite stems from some deep psychological malaise which may in fact be tied to her dissatisfaction with him. And just like that, what with this being France in the "liberated" seventies and all, Raoul decides to remedy the situation by more or less propositioning Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere), another guy sitting in the same restaurant, to become Solange's lover. This all happens literally within the first couple of minutes of Get Out Your Handkerchiefs beginning, and is perhaps as good an example as anything of the kind of no holds barred approach that writer and director Bernard Blier takes with this intentionally provocative piece.

But what may have seemed intentionally provocative yet also oddly in a way kind of innocent in the late seventies may quite understandably cause different "ripples" in today's zeitgeist , and my hunch is even devoted liberals (and maybe even devoted libertines, if I could jest for a moment, given the film's kind of hedonistic undertow) may find the film's emphasis on two men "sharing" a woman objectionable from the get go. When Blier also repeatedly frames whole scenes where Solange is topless, for no apparent reason, and then when it's overtly stated that the "cure" for all of Solange's perceived psychological issues would be for her to get pregnant and have a child, "provocation" may tip into offense, for better or worse. By the time Solange starts to encourage (or maybe more accurately not discourage with any fervor) the amorous advances of a young boy named Christian (Riton Liebman), sensibilities may be either numbed or outraged, but again my hunch is whatever lighter emotions were aimed for may simply be buried under the weight of contemporary influences to ever register as they were probably intended to.

Now it’s of course arguable and even highly probable that Blier was attempting even back in the “Dark Ages” of the late seventies to shine a little light on gender inequities and the so-called “sexual revolution”, but it’s also not that hard to understand how even some prone to cut the film a little slack with regard to its spinning moral compass(es) may have an issue with the whole subplot involving Solange and Christian. This is in some ways easily the most provocative element in the film, and it may at least provoke a little introspection about how perceptions differ when the elder (by a good stretch) in a relationship is a male, with a, say, teen female “companion”. Having the genders “reversed” here may have made this no less shocking, but maybe weirdly kind of more “acceptable” for seventies’ audiences, something that again simply may not be sustainable in today’s climate.

There's an obvious intelligence running through this film, but it can be a little smug and self satisfied at times. This is a film that has almost screed like philosophical discussions interspersed with subtexts involving high-falutin' things like Mozart's music. As such, its humor may be on the acquired taste side of things, even for some Francophiles. The film does offer a quartet of really winning performances, and it's almost shocking (in a different kind of way, though again in terms of how time changes perceptions) to see Depardieu as a dashing young matinee idol.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Cohen is touting a new 2K restoration to help celebrate the film's 40th anniversary, and this is another largely winning presentation from this typically reliable label. There is some variability in the thickness of the grain field, as can perhaps be made out by comparing some of the screenshots accompanying this review, and in some of the grittier moments, fine detail can be slightly masked, especially in some midrange and fine shots. In the chunkiest moments, grain can look a bit yellow at times. The palette is healthy looking, though seemed just a bit more skewed toward blue than I remember it being when I saw this film ages ago theatrically. For those who care about this, subtitles are forced throughout the presentation.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs features a nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track in the original French. The film's "Mozartian" tendencies as well as Georges Delerue's César winning score sound full bodied if understandably on the narrow side throughout the presentation. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly, and the occasional ambient environmental sound effects also resonate realistically.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction by Richard Peña (1080p; 5:06) features a Cohen Media Channel banner, and so I assume perhaps this is available to Cohen streaming subscribers.


• Original Trailer (1080p; 1:44)


• Re-Release Trailer (1080p; 1:28)

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are a number of pull quotes on the cover of this release, several speaking to the film's humor, but also one that probably appropriately describes it as "subversive". There's another one that say the film "makes you feel unreasonably happy", which my sense is may not be possible any more, at least for some viewers. Perhaps best appreciated as a kind of curio, at least for those who do find some aspects of the plot objectionable, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs features generally solid technical merits, for those who are considering a purchase.