The Burned Barns Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Burned Barns Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 4, 2022

The title of this film may suggest it's a farmer's or a rancher's outbuildings that may have gone up in flames, but considering a supplement on this disc featuring a trio of rather eyebrow raising interviews, it may have been the ears of writer-director Jean Chapot which were burning, considering the nonstop commentary about him these three collaborators offer. Chapot died in 1998, and one assumes this featurette was recorded some time after that, though the three people in the interview offering, Florence Moncorgé-Gabin, Philippe Monnier and Jean-François Delon, definitely do not subscribe to the maxim about not speaking ill of the dead. All three seem to want to go some lengths offering something positive to say about Chapot, but the repeated assessment from this trio is that Chapot was spectacularly ill equipped to direct a feature film, even if he had co-written it, and he most certainly was incapable of dealing forcefully with his two stars, Alain Delon and Simone Signoret. The result is a kind of frankly weird ostensible "whodunit" which in fact turns out to be something of a shaggy dog story and which is instead more focused on the interplay between a woman named Rose Cateux (Simone Signoret), on whose property the corpse of a young woman is found, and Pierre Larcher (Alain Delon), a judge who arrives to investigate.

Florence Moncorgé-Gabin kind of hilariously states that many actors are like children and will push perceived authority figures as far as they can until they're upbraided or corralled into behaving better, and in that regard Moncorgé-Gabin avers that Chapot was simply too reserved and introverted to ever successfully manage Signoret, who evidently brought him onto the project, and especially Delon. That may account at least in part not just for the film's kind of halting narrative, but Delon's rather inexpressive performance (by all accounts, Delon pretty much took over the director's chair by the end of the shoot, and it's notable that Chapot then decided to return to the relative safety of television for the most part). Even given the "backstage drama" that evidently played out during this film's production, the story itself is almost a paradigm of misdirection, since it seems to be about the dead girl found out in the snow, but really tends to revolve more around the relationships of Rose's family, all of whom have their various "issues", and the developing interplay between Rose and Larcher.

And in fact a subplot involving Rose's son Paul (Bernard Le Coq) helps to elucidate some of the interesting emotional content, which while never really dealt with overtly still suffuses the piece and which focuses on another implied death, namely that of the family farm. Rose is a country woman in every sense of the word, but it seems like progress is pulling her family toward more urban environments, whether or not she wants that to happen. Larcher in a way seems to be a "big city" interloper in more than one way himself, though rather curiously he and Rose have a surprisingly cordial relationship, despite the fact that Larcher becomes convinced that either Rose or one of her family knows more than they're letting on about that bloody corpse found out in the snow.

It would seem to be the case that The Burned Barns would turn into a cat and mouse game between Larcher and Rose, except that never really happens, at least not in the way a lot of supposed "thrillers" would have structured things. Rose is a strong, sturdy woman confronted with a number of bad behaviors which may or may not include murder, but the story kind of interestingly starts touching on what ultimately comes to be perceived as quasi-police harassment on the part of Larcher toward Rose and her family. Even despite this aspect, the relationship between Rose and Larcher, while probably not "warm" in any way (especially given Delon's kind of dour characterization and the intentional reserve of the Rose character), is still almost inexplicably cordial and even respectful.

There's a certain tawdriness to some things that end up being disclosed about Rose's kin as a result of the investigation, including soap operatic elements like extramarital affairs and petty theft (the latter with an admitted "edge" to it). But the whole "shaggy dog" aspect of the actual murder case is probably best exemplified by how the "solution" is doled out, which is to say, it's pretty much of a sidebar and an anti-climax, if even that. Signoret is probably the single best thing in this film, and she's really a quietly formidable presence throughout.

The Burned Barns Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Burned Barns is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1 (as with some other Cohen titles, the Cohen Film Collection has its own sub-imprint, Classics of French Cinema, which is also part of the branding here). As usual, Cohen really doesn't provide a ton of technical information, though the cover touts a "new 4K restoration" that I am assuming is the same one that provided the source for the French Blu-ray released by Coin de mire Cinéma in 2021. This is a largely very pleasing looking transfer, though I personally found the palette to be just a bit on the pinkish flushed side and contrast to be slightly anemic, something that is probably most apparent in some of the snowbound scenes where there's a prevalence of white anyway. Detail levels in less problematic moments are typically excellent on fine patterns of costumes and even things like the wallpaper in Rose's house. Grain is quite heavy at times, especially in some of those aforementioned outdoor scenes.

The Burned Barns Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Burned Barns features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track in the original French. Soundtrack aficionados will probably already know this film sports a score by noted synthesizer maestro Jean-Michel Jarre, and I know I'm about to commit absolute heresy (again, for those who are keeping track), by I find some of Jarre fils' musical contributions to be as anachronistic as some of his famous father's. That said, the electronically tinged score sounds vibrant and experiences no fidelity issues. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. This is just the latest release by Cohen of a foreign language film where they have encoded the English subtitles to be forced (i.e., they are not optional). I find this kind of annoying for a variety of reasons, and it would be great if Cohen could start offering viewers the option of whether or not they want to read subtitles.

The Burned Barns Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews (SD; 26:44) are as described above. Subtitled in English.


• Original Trailer (HD; 3:07) ironically has no subtitles, vis a vis my comments above in the audio section about forced subtitles for the main feature.

The Burned Barns Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The three interview subjects make absolutely no bones about how troubled this shoot was, and it has to be admitted that the off screen dysfunctions probably penetrated to the film itself, most likely unavoidably. There's a weird, halting quality to the narrative, as if Chapot couldn't quite decide how to shape the material, which is one part (supposed) murder mystery and one part family soap opera. Signoret is really solid in her portrayal of a woman seeing both her family and way of life challenged by outside forces. Technical merits are generally solid, and that bonus interview featurette is really quite something, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.