7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Anne Wiazemsky, Juliet Berto, Blandine Jeanson, Eliane GiovagnoliForeign | 100% |
Drama | 88% |
Dark humor | 3% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
French SDH, English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Winner of Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, Jean-Luc Godard's "La chinoise" (1967) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of French distributors Gaumont. The supplemental features on the disc include original trailer for the film; video interviews with actor Michel Semeniako, second assistant director Jean-Claude Sussfeld, writer Denitza Bantcheva, assistant director Charles L. Bitsch, and writer, historian, and film critic Antoine de Baecque. In French, with optional English and French SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.
Viva Mao!
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Jean-Luc Godard's La Chinoise arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Gaumont.
Some denoising corrections have been performed, and occasionally there are traces of these corrections that could be spotted, but the film has a far more pleasing look than Bande à part. Most close-ups convey decent depth and with a few small exceptions clarity is good. Contrast is also stable. Color density and saturation are very similar to those observed on Criterion's release of Weekend, though brightness levels appear to have been slightly elevated here. Furthermore, excluding the denoising corrections mentioned earlier, the one area where sizable improvements could be made is compression (see screencapture #1). There are no large damage marks, cuts, debris, or stains. Edge-shimmer is also nowhere to be seen. To sum it all up, the presentation is far from perfect, but I don't find it disappointing. The distracting smearing from Bande à part isn't an issue here and there are no traces of serious sharpening corrections. Naturally, if Gaumont would have used a raw transfer, La Chinoise would have looked as impressive as Weekend. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location. For the record, there is not problematic PAL or 1080/50i preceding the disc's main menu).
There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc: French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. For the record, Gaumont have provided optional English and French SDH subtitles for the main feature.
The film does not have a prominent music soundtrack. Unsurprisingly, dynamic movement is quite limited. The dialog, however, is very crisp, clean, stable, and easy to follow. Also, there are no pops, cracks, distortions, or audio dropouts to report in this review. The English translation is excellent.
Gaumont's presentation of Jean-Luc Godard's La Chinoise is far more convincing than their presentation of Bande a part. While it is clear to me that the film could have had a much more convincing organic look, it is also very obvious that this is a serious upgrade in quality over previous DVD releases of the film. At this time, my advise is to consider picking up a copy of La Chinoise if you could find it on sale. RECOMMENDED.
(Still not reliable for this title)
1966
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