6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Foreign | 100% |
Drama | 61% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
French: LPCM 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of
The Benoit Jacquot Collection.
La Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave, is a perhaps singular movement in the history of film, even if many of its supposed
proponents would argue about whether there was an “official” movement at all. It’s hard to think of another example of a group of
filmmakers crafting a series of films that revolutionized both content and (probably especially) form so viscerally as did iconoclasts like
François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard (and what’s really frightening is that these two titans, along with others in the New Wave
whatever it was, were critics to begin with—yikes!) Maybe the Abstract Expressionists, or even the Americans who would
later be identified (ironically by the French) as film noir adherents, could be afforded this same radical status, but the New Wave was
so revolutionary and trendsetting that it seems to stand alone, a monolithic presence not just in its native country, but in the entire
annals of cinema. That said, the fact that the New Wave looms so large in France’s history may have led to certain categorization issues for
some French filmmakers who followed in the wake of the Wave, including Benoît Jacquot, a man whose birthyear of 1947 was only one year
before The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo, one of the first critical analyses that gave birth to the New Wave, was
published. That ostensibly should place Jacquot at least partially in a post-New Wave generation, since many of the movement’s most iconic
films came out in either the late fifties or early sixties (e.g., Paris Belongs to Us, The 400 Blows, Breathless
, Shoot the Piano Player), while Jacquot himself didn’t
really get started helming feature films until the seventies. However, Jacquot’s early career included an extended apprenticeship under one
of the more lustrous (if sadly lesser known) names from the New Wave, Marguerite Duras, a director in her own right who is nonetheless
probably best remembered for having written Resnais’ classic Hiroshima mon amour. Perhaps due to that connection, as well as to some almost ineffable elements that waft
through Jacquot’s films at times, some folks have tried pigeonholing him as a New Wave phenomenon, but Jacquot, while anarchic in his own
deliberate way, is more of a formalist than some might typically associate with New Wave sensibilities, and he has in fact even mounted the
same kind of historical epic (Farewell, My Queen)
that was a particular thorn in the sides of some of the postulants populating the pages of Cahiers du Cinéma back in the day. (It
should be noted that Jacquot’s “take” on the historical epic is typically insouciant at times, perhaps indicative of the fact that he probably
read some of the barbs aimed at this genre by some of the 1950s French critics.) Jacquot has been curiously underserved on Blu-ray, with
only 3 Hearts appearing in addition to the aforementioned
Marie Antoinette drama domestically on disc, but Cohen Film Collection is ameliorating that issue with a new release that collects three of
Jacquot’s 1990s efforts together.
The Disenchanted is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. All three films
in the The Benoit Jacquot Collection have
been sourced from new 2K restorations, and all three offer elements that are virtually damage free in terms of nicks, scratches or other similar
issues. Jacquot does not really exploit any visual "wow" moments in The Disenchanted, with a fairly tamped down palette on display, and
in fact there's a kind of dark, dowdy ambience a lot of the time, especially with regard to some of the squalid living conditions Bêth and her family
experience. This is the grainiest presentation of the three films in the set, but despite the fairly heavy textures on display, everything resolves
very naturally and features a very organic looking appearance. Detail is very good, especially in close-ups. There's a slight yellowish tinge in
some interior scenes that tends to smooth levels of detail.
Three additional screenshots in positions 1-3 are available in The Benoit Jacquot Collection Blu-ray review.
The Disenchanted features an LPCM 2.0 track in the original French. As with all three films in The Benoit Jacquot Collection, The Disenchanted offers a fairly restrained sound design, one which offers a lot of dialogue scenes between two characters at a time, but a relative paucity of ambient environmental sounds, at least in the many interior sequences. Fidelity is fine throughout the presentation, and there are no problems of any kind to warrant concern.
Despite the somewhat smarmy subtext of the film, The Disenchanted is surprisingly smart, even if some elements like its references to Rimbaud may strike some as overly pretentious. The film relies on Godrèche's incredibly expressive eyes throughout a somewhat uncomfortable series of unfortunate events. While The Disenchanted may weirdly forsake going for the gusto in the emotional arena, the film is compelling and tonally fascinating. Technical merits are generally very strong and The Disenchanted comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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