7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In the end of the first Indochina War, an open-minded teenage boy finds himself between the urge to discover love and the ever-present, dominating affection of his mother.
Starring: Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Daniel Gélin, Michael Lonsdale, Ave NinchiForeign | 100% |
Drama | 61% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
French: LPCM 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Louis Malle's "Murmur of the Heart" a.k.a. "Le souffle au coeur" (1971) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Curzon/Artificial Eye. There are no supplemental features on this release. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
"What a dope. He does not understand you."
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Curzon/Artificial Eye.
The release is sourced from the same master that French label Gaumont prepared and used for its local release of Murmur of the Heart in 2015. It is not a flawless master, but I actually like it a lot, and below I will attempt to make it very clear why.
During the last couple of years I have managed to see quite a few of the restorations and remasters that Gaumont has completed and used for various releases and virtually all of the color films have had some issues -- sometimes they are small and fairly easy to tolerate, but there has been a very large number of recent masters with serious issues. The most problematic masters are typically graded without proper reference and exhibit massive color shifts that can literally collapse the dynamic range of the entire film. Quite often entire ranges of healthy nuances are lost as well. (For reference, Gaumont's recent 'restoration' of Louis Malle's Atlantic City is a perfect example of a very poorly managed project -- the color grading is so bad that the film is practically unwatchable now). Murmur of the Heart is largely free of such serious issues, and I find the overall color balance to be very pleasing. I do believe that ideally the color palette could be more convincing, boasting finer nuances and at the same time supporting even better saturated primaries, but it is free of the type of wild color shifts that some recent restorations have had and this makes quite a difference. Also, there are a few areas where light black crush emerges that could have been avoided, but it never becomes distracting and even on a fairly large screen it does not appear to destabilize depth (you can see an example in screencapture #18). There are no traces of problematic degraining or sharpening corrections. The grain could be slightly better exposed, but it is retained and visible throughout the entire film. Image stability is excellent. Lastly, there are no large distracting damage marks, cuts, stains, warped, or torn frames to report in our review. All in all, even though there is some room for improvement, this is a very fine organic presentation that makes it extremely easy to enjoy the film. My score if 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked:" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: French LPCM 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.
The quality of the lossless track is very good. The film's original sound design does not offer any notable dynamic movement, or at least when compared to the type of active mixes that contemporary films have, but the dialog is exceptionally clean, stable, and always easy to follow. There are no audio dropouts, pops, clicks, or digital distortions to report.
There are no bonus features on this release.
Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart is one of the best coming-of-age films ever made. This isn't an exaggeration. Indeed, I don't know if there is anyone that has seen the film that hasn't been touched by its honesty. Countless directors have also copied what Malle did in it. Curzon/Artificial Eye's new release of Murmur of the Heart is sourced from the same master that French label prepared and used for its local release in 2015, but I actually think that the technical presentation is slightly better here. (Please note that the release is included in this big ten-disc box set). HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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