6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Married couple Lui and Elle ponder the future of their troubled relationship against the neorealist backdrop of life in a Mediterranean fishing village. While Lui and Elle debate the nature of their tenuous bond, the simple villagers deal with their own crises, big and small, as they desperately try to make ends meet.
Starring: Philippe Noiret, Silvia MonfortForeign | 100% |
Drama | 61% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: LPCM Mono
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of
The Complete Films of Agnès Varda.
In the wake (figurative or otherwise) of Agnès Varda’s death last year at the age of 90, quite a bit has rightfully been written about this iconic force
in
both
French and global cinema. Varda’s output includes well over fifty credits as a director (including some television entries as detailed by the
IMDb), and aside from listing some of her better known triumphs,
many obituaries and/or eulogies about Varda mentioned any number of other biographical data points, including her rather unique position as a
woman in France’s nouvelle vague movement, her own feminism which was featured none too subtly in some of her films, and her
frequently provocative experimental style. But you know what one of the things that kind of fascinates me personally most about Varda? That she
was married for 28 years to Jacques Demy, from 1962 until Demy’s death in 1990. That Varda, often a purveyor of verité infused
“realism”,
whether that be in outright documentaries or at least ostensibly more “fictional” outings, and Demy, a director whose candy colored, dreamlike and
at least relatively "Hollywoodized" musicals with
Michel Legrand brought a new luster and gloss to French cinema, managed to make a marital go of it for so long is certainly testament to the
maxim
that “opposites attract”, even if those oppositional forces in this instance played out at least in part in terms of what kinds of films the two were
often
best remembered for. If Varda's long marriage to Demy is more than enough reason to celebrate her personal life, her professional life is
beautifully
feted in this rather astounding new set from Criterion, which aggregates an amazing 39 films (albeit some running as short as a few minutes) to
provide what is arguably one of the most insightful
overviews of Varda's cinematic oeuvre. Perhaps unavoidably, but also undeniably movingly, these personal and professional sides of
Varda
merge in at least some of the films in this set, including
The
Young
Girls Turn 25, The World of Jacques
Demy, Jacquot de Nantes, and The Beaches of Agnès.
La Pointe Courte is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Some prefatory text cards disclose this was sourced off the negative, originally scanned at 4K and then finished at 2K, done in Bologna in 2013. This is by and large a really ravishing accounting of this often quite striking looking film. Black levels are solid throughout, and the gray scale very nicely modulated. Detail levels are typically very good to excellent. There is still some noticeable damage that has made it through the restoration gauntlet. For example, in the opening moments there's what appears to be slight emulsion degradation on the right side of the frame, and a bit later, when the focal couple first arrives in the village and are walking by a chain link fence, there's considerable mottling and speckling that shows up for just a moment. On the whole, though, there are no major distractions. Grain can occasionally be a little gritty looking, but resolves naturally for the most part.
La Pointe Courte features an LPCM Mono track in the original French. The film has a somewhat astringent, modern score by Pierre Barbaud which frequently features winds, and that element, while kind of interstitial, sounds fine. Dialogue, including quite a bit of "background" chatter that the optional English subtitles never translate, also sounds fine, though there are some very minor pops that can be heard in passing.
It's kind of interesting how Varda starts this film by wending through various villagers' lives before the ostensible focal couple is even introduced, just one of the many structural ingenuities on display here. Varda's camera is also amazingly mobile, especially considering some of the locations she's covering. The film itself is fascinating both for its inherent content, but perhaps just as much for some of its "meta" aspects which have rippled out from it in the many years since its original release. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package enjoyable. Highly recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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