Near Orouët Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Near Orouët Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 16, 2026

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Time to Play: Films by Jacques Rozier from Radiance Films.

Blu-ray sets offering the complete filmographies of any given creator can tend to be pretty huge, even overwhelming, affairs, like Ingmar Bergman's Cinema and/or The Complete Films of Agnès Varda. That Varda set may be particularly a propos when discussing this (much smaller) set, since both Varda and Jacques Rozier were both prominent members of the French New Wave, even if neither arguably rose to the global fame heights of, say, Jean-Luc Godard or François Truffaut. If Varda either fairly or unfairly got some reflected glow from her long marriage to Jacques Demy, one way or the other even she, as arguably underappreciated as she's been, was probably better known internationally than Rozier, who has continued to kind of be the "bastard stepchild" of the movement, consigned by fate and (sorry) critical assessments to what is perceived as a lower echelon, even if that perception is manifestly undeserved. Rozier is a fascinating figure one way or the other, as his approach toward Nouvelle Vague was decidedly different than his contemporaries (notably Varda, in fact), and despite a decades long career, he only ended up making five feature films, all of which Radiance has aggregated for this new collection.

The relative sparsity of films by Rozier is maybe overtly indicated by the fact that this second feature of his was screened at Cannes in 1971, some nine years after Adieu Philippine, though the film had actually been completed substantially before then, and ironically its "wide" release didn't occur until substantially after the Cannes showing. While in color and 16mm, unlike Rozier's first feature, this sophomore effort definitely has some tethers not only to the earlier film, but in fact some of Rozier's remaining output. Once again there are three focal characters and a beachside setting, all in what might be thought of as a perfectly idyllic late French summer.

This time the main trio is female, Caroline (Caroline Cartier), Caroline's cousin Kareen (Françoise Guégan), and Joëlle (Danièle Croisy) are vacationing at a villa owned by Caroline's mother in the titular location. Perhaps even more so than with Adieu Philippine, Near Orouët does not offer traditional plot dynamics, even after the women are joined by Gilbert (Bernard Menez), the fumbling boss of Joëlle, and a hunky local sailor named Patrick (Patrick Verde). Instead to re-use a pun from my review of Rozier's first film, Near Orouët "coasts" (in both senses) on a totally relaxed, quasi vérité vibe that is as much lowkey documentary adjacent travelogue as anything else. Like a languid vacation that you never want to end, this does have an undeniably slow pace and pretty long running time.

Near Orouët Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Near Orouët is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Radiance sent check discs for purposes of this review and so I'm not privy to any information about the transfer contained in an insert booklet, but a prefatory text card before the main presentation states this was "digitised and restored in 4K", one presumes from the original negative though that was not specified in this instance as it was with some of the other films in this set. As mentioned above, this was shot in color and 16mm and so has more of an almost "home movie" feel at times, with some admittedly pretty fuzzy looking wide shots in particular. Color timing looked just a tad cool to me, but I frankly never saw this theatrically. As such, blues and greens in particular are especially evocative, and some of the brightly lit seaside material pops quite invitingly. Some darker moments can suffer from passing crush and occasional deficits in shadow detail. Grain resolves naturally throughout.

Near Orouët Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Near Orouët features a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track in the original French. The glut of beach settings provides near constant background sea noises, though they can be quite subtle at times. Other outdoor moments away from water can offer nice smatterings of things like breezes rustling through leaves. There story utilizes both diagetic and more traditional underscore music by the psychedelic band Gong. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Near Orouët Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Jean-François Stévenin (HD; 9:22) is a 2008 interview with the actor and assistant director for this film. Subtitled in English.


• Catherine Wheatley and Robert Beeson (HD; 26:29) is a new piece focusing on how the French New Wave was received in the United Kingdom.


• Paparazzi (HD; 22:29) is a kind of amazing documentary shot by Rozier on the set of Godard's Contempt.


• Le Parti des Choses (HD; 10:33) is another briefer documentary by Rozier tied to the shoot of Godard's Contempt.

Near Orouët Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maybe even more than Adieu Philippine, if that's possible, Near Orouët is a languid viewing experience that requires a bit of patience, but which repays that patience with carefully (if spontaneously) drawn characterizations and some ravishing scenery. Technical merits are solid and this disc has some of the best supplements of the entire set. Recommended.