7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Reserved, bourgeois college student Charles comes to stay with his devil-may-care cousin, Paul, who lives the fast life in Paris. Sensitive Charles, thrown into the whirlwind of his cousin's social circle, meets pretty Florence at a party and believes he has found true love. When Florence breaks his heart, Charles concentrates on his studies with renewed fervor, but soon tensions between the two cousins take a dark turn.
Starring: Gérard Blain, Jean-Claude Brialy, Juliette Mayniel, Guy Decomble, Michèle MéritzForeign | 100% |
Drama | 94% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
French: LPCM 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 16-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, Claude Chabrol's "Les cousins" a.k.a. "The Cousins" (1959) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include the film's original theatrical trailer; part two of Pierre-Henri Gibert's documentary film "Chabrol Launches the Wave"; and a segment from the 1964 omnibus film "Les plus belles escroqueries du monde" a.k.a "The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers". The release also arrives with a 36-page illustrated booklet with writings on the film. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
Left behind
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Claude Chabrol's Les cousins arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment.
The high-definition transfer is very impressive. I don't have Gaumont's Blu-ray release to run some direct comparisons, but I suspect that the French release looks identical. I have Criterion's release, whose high-definition transfer was also sourced from Gaumont's restoration of Les cousins, and I could not see any important discrepancies to address in our review. Detail and depth are terrific, while clarity and image depth are consistently pleasing. Grain is well resolved and easy to see throughout the entire film. There are no traces of problematic denoising and degraining corrections. I also did not see any traces of sharpening corrections. Large damage marks, debris, and scratches have also been removed as best as possible. To sum it all up, Les cousins has a stable and very convincing organic look. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B and Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray disc: French LPCM 2.0. For the record, Eureka Entertainment have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.
The lossless track opens up the film exceptionally well. The range of dynamics, however, is unlikely to impress viewers that enjoy the aggressive audio tracks contemporary films often have. With a few minor exceptions, mostly during sequences where the music has a prominent role, the film's overall sound design is indeed quite modest. The dialog is crisp, always stable, clean, and easy to follow. The English translation is very good.
Claude Chabrol's Les cousins arrives rather late on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom, but I think it is fair to say that the wait was well worth it. Eureka Entertainment's release uses as a foundation Gaumont's new restoration of the film. The same restoration was also used for the French release, as well as Criterion's Region-A "locked" release. Eureka Entertainment's release also adds the supplemental features from the French release, with optional English subtitles, as well as a rather big illustrated booklet with writings on the film. Naturally, this makes the release very easy to recommend to English-speakers residing in Region-B territories. I would also recommend this release to viewers interested in Chabrol's work residing in Region-A territories, provided, of course, they can play Region-B "locked" discs. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Handsome Serge / Masters of Cinema
1958
My Life to Live
1962
The Night / Masters of Cinema
1961
L'avenir
2016
Léon Morin, prêtre
1961
Une femme mariée: Suite de fragments d'un film tourné en 1964 / Masters of Cinema
1964
50th Anniversary Edition | Vintage World Cinema
1967
1934
Il deserto rosso
1964
Mahanagar
1963
Babettes gæstebud
1987
Out 1: Noli me tangere / Out 1: Spectre | Arrow Academy
1971
À bout de souffle / Vintage World Cinema
1960
Elle s'appelait Sarah
2010
După dealuri
2012
Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan
2013
2006
Alice in den Städten
1974
Die Ehe der Maria Braun / Arrow Academy
1978
1948