La Travestie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

La Travestie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov September 18, 2026

Yves Boisset's "La Travestie" a.k.a. "The Transvestite" (1988) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Indicator/Powerhouse Films. The supplemental features on the release include short archival interviews with Yves Boisset and Zabou Breitman; new program with critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas; archival promotional materials; and more. In English, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A/B "locked".

The grifter

Nicole Armingaud (Zabou Breitman) is a grifter. The first fifteen minutes of La Travestie reveal that she's been sleeping with multiple older men, waiting for the right opportunity to pocket a substantial sum of their money. Armingaud creates the right opportunity after lying to each schmuck that she is carrying his baby. While barely able to contain the fear raging inside them, they all enthusiastically offer her money to have an abortion.

The remaining eighty minutes of La Travestie provide material for its audience to determine whether Armingaud is an intelligent grifter or a dangerously delusional grifter who happens to be somewhat intelligent. The last ten minutes of La Travestie provide material that makes the obvious painfully obvious.

After collecting her abortion money, Armingaud also empties the safe of her boss, a prominent lawyer, and packs her bags. Then, with no clear plan for what to do with the money she has amassed, Armingaud cuts her hair short, dresses like a young man, and boards the next train to Paris.

On one of the seediest streets in Paris, while pretending to be a horny young man, Armingaud books a quick date with Solange (Anna Galiena), a charming hooker with a most unusual tattoo. When moments later Armingaud confesses she is not a man and the date was meant to be an impromptu birthday gift, the hooker puts her clothes back on and returns her money. Armingaud and the hooker then arrange a different date, where the two bond and become a couple.

When the hooker accidentally dies, Armingaud attempts to fill the void she has left with two other partners. The first is Anne-Marie (Valerie Steffen), a middle-aged, upper-class housewife whose marriage has started falling apart. Armingaud seduces her and for a while they act as if they are in love. However, when Armingaud becomes even more dominant than her cheating husband, Anne-Marie abandons her. The second is Alain (Yves Afonso), a painter with a shoddy imagination, whom Armingaud deceives by pretending to be another girl from an old, failed romantic relationship. When the switcheroo is exposed, the supposedly revived romantic relationship cracks again, and Armingaud quickly becomes an uncontrollable human torpedo.

Yves Boisett’s oeuvre features several excellent crime films that, sadly, are largely unknown among English speakers. Boisett directed them during the 1970s and 1980s, and they are all provocative in very interesting ways. For example, Rise Up, Spy slices the Cold War spy game with an authority that makes universally praised films like The Parallax View and 3 Days of the Condor look oddly inferior. The French Conspiracy is a terrific character study that rivals The Conformist as well.

La Travestie is a good, memorable film, too. Like Boisett’s crime films, it forces its audience to see through developments and transformations rather than rationalize them in supposedly logical ways. Unlike Boisett’s crime films, La Travestie is devoid of politics, but its bruising sincerity is extremely easy to manipulate.

This bruising sincerity is what makes La Traveste relevant today. Boisett unleashes its heroine to roam free on both sides of the invisible line separating the two sexes, and her actions expose an equally troubled individual. As the gender switches are underway, Boisett also reveals that the roots of her misery are far deeper than she describes to her romantic partners.

La Travestie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, La Travestie arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Indicator/Powerhouse Films.

The release presents a recent 4K restoration that can best be described as a mixed bag. Its biggest strength is the its ability to produce stable, healthy visuals, most of which look quite nice on a large screen. Unfortunately, plenty of these visuals reveal color inconsistencies that are introduced by improper grading work. In many areas where blue and blue nuances should be properly set and balanced, there is an obvious shift toward teal/turquoise. When the blue nuances are limited, the anomalies are easy to ignore. However, when there are multiple ranges of blue nuances, the anomalies are very obvious. Also, in some areas, these shifts affect the overall temperature of the visuals, creating unnaturally cooler and flat visuals as seen here, here, and here. These types of anomalies are very common on recent 4K restorations of color films completed at the French lab VDM, but can also be observed on other 4K restorations. There are no traces of any problematic digital corrections. Also, the entire film looks immaculate. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A/B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A, Region-B, or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

La Travestie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: French LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

La Travestie does not have a prominent music score, and or elaborate action material that can create big dynamic contrasts. As a result, its soundtrack has an organic quality that is suitable for a modern urban documentary feature. All exchanges are very clear, sharp, and easy to follow. The English translation is excellent.

La Travestie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Location Report - a short archival program featuring clips from interviews with Yves Boisset and Zabou Breitman, as well as footage from the shooting of La Travestie. In French, with English subtitles. (4 min).

• Girls and Boys Come Out to Play - this new program features critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. In English, not subtitled. (14 min).

• Image Gallery - a collection of original promotional materials for La Travestie.

• Script Gallery - a text-version of the dialogue continuity script.

• Booklet - a limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Georgia Humphreys, excerpts from the film's press kit, an overview of critical responses, and technical credits.

La Travestie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Folks who slide into the abyss of madness can be helped. But it must happen early, before the demons of madness, as Yves Boisett describes them, destroy them from within. Also, someone must truly care that they get better. If they are surrounded by pretenders, a successful recovery is unlikely. In La Travestie, the main protagonist is a troubled grifter who moves through several relationships before crashing into the abyss of madness. Nothing in her story surprises. It reconfirms that people who are left to self-destruct inevitably do, and sometimes they hurt and take down with them total strangers who accidentally enter their orbit.