Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Graduate First Blu-ray Movie Review

French Graffiti.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 19, 2016

Note: This film is available as part of The Films of Maurice Pialat: Volume 1.

In my recent Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli Blu-ray review, I mentioned how it’s likely that talking about giallo to even the most ardent film buff would probably result in a response offering only one of two names, Dario Argento or Mario Bava. Similarly, if one were to ask a film fan to name a French director whose work spanned the 1960s through the 1980s, my hunch is most folks would tend to gravitate toward iconic names like Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut or Claude Chabrol. Nouvelle Vague so famously subsumed so much of modern (meaning post-World War II) French cinema that some creatives (like Chabrol in fact) found themselves akin to square pegs being (or at least attempted at being) thrust into round holes. Maurice Pialat is not a name known to many Western film lovers, even those who consider themselves Francophiles, and it’s interesting to note that Pialat often works in a style that would frankly make him more at home with his nearby European neighbors, the Italians, since Pialat frequently favors a neorealistic approach that is long on character, gritty verisimilitude, and a sometimes lax approach toward traditional plot structure and three act “arcs”. Pialat also tends to eschew some of the stylistic flourishes that populate the Nouvelle Vague catalog, especially in terms of editing. Instead of, well, Breathless cutting (sorry), Pialat often indulges in long, drawn out single takes that allow his actors to fully explore the nuances of their characters, even if at times dialogue is fitfully minimal. It’s a technique that immediately puts Pialat at odds with many of his (more) famous contemporaries, and may account at least in part for Pialat’s strange lack of recognition on this side of the pond. Cohen Film Collection, quickly becoming a haven for cineastes (if it hasn’t already), is helping to ameliorate that problem by releasing a trio of Pialat’s work spanning from 1974 to 1980, along with a revealing documentary about the director.

American Graffiti, for all its appealing naturalness and lack of pretense, offers a kind of stark contrast to the at least tangentially similar Graduate First. The George Lucas film is deservedly thought of as at least a minor masterpiece, but there’s never really any doubt that you’re watching a movie, an obviously fictional world that exists within the cinematic frame. Graduate First may strike some as a quasi-documentary by comparison, for it’s a bit more unkempt, and perhaps therefore more “lifelike” or “believable”, in a rambling sort of way that seems perfectly in tune with its gaggle of teenage characters on the precipice of—well, something.

Graduate First’s original French title Passe ton Bac d’abord references the test called the bac, one of those rites of passage that is probably both anticipated and feared by the gaggle of teenagers in the film. Getting good grades on the test would normally mean more job opportunities, but in the working class world of northern France in the late seventies, there really aren’t many job opportunities and in fact much of the working class isn’t (working, that is). It’s in this already depressive atmosphere that a feeling of general listlessness in the teens is explored.

There’s a rather unbridled degree of libido on display in many and maybe even most of the characters, with Pialat’s large cast seemingly on a quest to bed everyone else who’s momentarily available. But rather commendably things don’t seem smarmy in the slightest, and in fact there’s a curiously realistic feeling to the portrayals of kids confronting harsh socioeconomic realities relying on physical gratification to perhaps salve their psyches. To Pialat’s credit, he doesn’t really make an overt point of this, and remains in effect a “documentarian”, fashioning a really uniquely “real” feeling film out of a series of seemingly random vignettes.

Graduate First is as sad in its own way as La Gueule ouverte (The Mouth Agape), though in this case it’s more of a bittersweet quality, one perhaps ameliorated by the fact that for all the uncertainty and trauma afflicting these young folks, they are after all young, with at least the hope of better things ahead. Pialat is once again unsparing in his view of almost inherently wounded characters, but he broadens his canvas here from the relatively intimate confines of The Mouth Agape, surprisingly without losing any of the intimacy.

Graduate First Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Graduate First is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. This is another very appealing looking transfer, with just a couple of minor issues for the most demanding videophiles to be aware of. The palette is a bit drab by design throughout the film, though there are momentary pops of vivid hues like a rainbow blouse a character wears or a bright red Che Guevara poster gracing one character's bedroom, but things look natural throughout the presentation. Some seaside scenes pop especially well, and in fact when the film ventures out of doors (which it does quite often), detail levels are at least incrementally increased. There are a few minor deficits in some dark scenes, with, for example, very minimal crush in attendance in some of the early scenes in the cafe, where things like black jackets can blend into already dark backgrounds. This has a noticeably lighter grainfield than La Gueule ouverte, but things still look natural and nicely organic throughout. As with La Gueule ouverte, there are no signs of damage.

Graduate First Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Perhaps surprisingly all three features in The Films of Maurice Pialat: Volume 1 sport Dolby Digital 2.0 mono tracks. The French release of Loulou, the only Pialat film in this set to have appeared previously on Blu-ray, featured a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track. As longtime readers of my Cohen reviews know, I took the label to task for their earlier authoring of discs which tended to default to lossy Dolby Digital tracks rather than also included lossless tracks, but in this case there are no lossless tracks. That's ultimately not a huge deal, given the relatively small scale sonic ambitions of all three films, though it's at least arguable that the Mozart quotes in La Gueule ouverte might have gained a bit of "oomph" in a lossless setting. Dialogue and effects are both rendered cleanly on all three tracks, with no damage of any kind to warrant concern.

Graduate First Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Cohen has spread the three feature films and supplements across the three discs in this set in a somewhat unusual way. The Mouth Agape and Graduate First share one BD-50 with no supplemental content, while Loulou is on its own BD-50 with its supplemental features. The third disc contains the following content:

• Maurice Pialat: Love Exists (1080p; 1:25:10) is a really interesting overview of Pialat's work, documenting a number of his early films while also giving some fascinating referents from films which colored Pialat's youth. This is a great place to start for those unfamiliar with Pialat's oeuvre.

Graduate First Extras

• Interview with Patrick Grandperret and Arlette Langmann (1080p; 11:04)


• Original Trailer (1080p; 2:29)


• 2016 Re-Release Trailer (1080p; 1:11)

The Mouth Agape Extras

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 11:26)


• Interview with Micheline Pialat (1080p; 11:56)


• Interview with Nathalie Baye (1080p; 8:06)


• Original Trailer (1080p; 2:56)


• 2016 Re-Release Trailer (1080p; 1:26)

Graduate First Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some folks may be wishing for more of a pronounced narrative thrust in Graduate First, but its very aimlessness seems to echo the profound uncertainty that its teenaged cast is facing. The film works better as an almost Slacker-esque set of interlocking vignettes, and also needs to be taken on its own deliberately "mundane" terms. For those willing to surrender to the film's somewhat depressive charms, Graduate First comes Highly recommended.