6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
100-year old Simon Cinéma lives in a magnificent house filled with movie memorabilia. To help him remember the important details of his career he hires Camille, a film student to write down his remembrances and experiences which have involved all areas of movie-making. Camille comes once a day for 101 days. Film clips, photographs, and actual visitors highlight his stories.
Starring: Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Henri Garcin, Julie Gayet, Mathieu DemyForeign | 100% |
Romance | 18% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
History | Insignificant |
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 free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
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.
One Hundred and One Nights is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Some prefatory text discloses that this was shot on 35mm argentic color stock in a 1.66:1 format, which was restored by Ciné Tamaris in 2014 at Laboratory Eclair, with a 2K restoration from a 2K scan of the original negative. Color grading was supervised by Agnès Varda. This is another largely gorgeous looking transfer with a nicely suffused palette and some very appealing detail levels. While things do have a slightly cool look at times , this doesn't offer the same level of blue undertone that some other films in this set do, despite the fact that blues are rather prevalently used in the production design. But primaries here can pop extremely well, as in the red shirt and, later, red jacket that Marcello Mastroianni wears. Fine detail on the kind of baroque assortment of tchochkes around Simon's house is typically great. Grain resolves naturally for the most part, but there are a couple of pretty noticeable spikes, as in a club scene, where things can look a little gritty at times. There are quite a few film clips scattered throughout the proceedings, and those show understandable variances in quality.
One Hundred and One Nights features an LPCM 2.0 track in the original French that renders the film's dialogue and score without any problems whatsoever. The soundtracks of some of the films that are being "screened" or talked about can sometimes play underneath the actual dialogue, but prioritization is well handled throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
- Films
- La Melangite (1080i; 3:47)
- Christmas Carole (1080i; 4:34)
- Commercials, 1971
- Collants Minuit (1080i; 00:46)
- Tupperware (1080i; 1:34)
Maybe after having gotten through a staggering ten discs of Varda features and shorts by the time I got to One Hundred and One Nights, "resistance (was) futile", as a certain alien force once proclaimed to Starfleet, but I actually enjoyed the dizzying array of films and cameos that this outing offered. This is Varda at her most eccentric, which is saying something, so I frankly could understand some viewers simply feeling overwhelmed by this entry. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package very appealing. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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1961
2003
2015
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1986
1984
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1995
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2002
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1958
Agnès Varda: From Here to There
2011
1976
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1976
Diary of a Pregnant Woman
1958
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1988
1981
Ydessa, the Bears and etc.
2004
1964
Réponse de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe / Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex
1975
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Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans
1993
The So-Called Caryatids
1984