7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Adèle Hugo, youngest daughter of famed French poet and author Victor Hugo, develops an obsession for a young British officer and stalks him, despite his scorn for her, following him first to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then to Barbados.
Starring: Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, Sylvia Marriott, Joseph Blatchley, Ivry GitlisForeign | 100% |
Drama | 44% |
Biography | Insignificant |
History | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
It’s always seemed just a little bit odd to me that Ayn Rand should have posited Victor Hugo as one of her favorite authors, and furthermore to have listed Les Misérables in her “good reads” category. After all, could there be any two more different sensibilities than Hugo’s championing of the common man and Rand’s emphasis on a certain kind of exceptionalism? Is there any more manifest difference than Les Misérables’ emphasis on a cruel, unjust fate awaiting one of the downtrodden and any number of books by Rand which often seem to read as credos to that vaunted one percent? As different as Hugo and Rand’s artistic ambiences seem to be (at least on their faces), there’s a tangential but interesting connection between Hugo’s real life and Rand’s penchant for florid romances in (many of) her books. Hugo’s daughter Adèle, a woman who was probably mentally ill, developed an obsessive attraction toward a hapless British lieutenant named Pinson, following the poor guy hither and yon despite the fact that he seems at the very least befuddled by her attentions. This may not rise to the overheated levels of, say, Dominique Francon and Howard Roark in The Fountainhead or Dagny Taggart and John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, but it still provides imaginative fodder that perhaps Rand, certainly no slouch when it came to history, may have stumbled across Adèle’s sad story when she was devouring Jean Valjean’s equally sad tale. The Story of Adèle H. is kind of an interesting film for the legendary François Truffaut, one which merges his historical interests (as evidenced by films such as The 400 Blows and The Wild Child) with a somewhat more traditional and Romantic (capital R) sensibility that is at least slightly different from the envelope pushing Nouvelle vague, if also somewhat cool and detached, approach, which helped to establish the auteur's (a term Truffaut helped to popularize) international reputation. Isabelle Adjani really burst into international prominence in the title role of this film, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress which at the time made her the youngest ever nominee in that particular category.
The Story of Adèle H. is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67. Truffaut and legendary cinematographer Nestor Almendros work in a fairly subdued, tamped down palette here, one which exploits lots of slate grays and deeply burnished browns, while offering occasional pops like a red dress Adèle wears. The palette looks generally accurate here, though occasionally perhaps slightly on the pinkish-brown side. Several long scenes take place in dimly lit environments, and while shadow detail isn't really exceptional, there's appealing depth to the imagery, with a good, consistent looking grain structure. Close-ups offer nice fine detail in some of the sumptuous costumes and finely appointed furniture. There are no issues with image instability and the elements are in generally excellent condition.
The Story of Adèle H. features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix which capably supports the film's dialogue (in both French and
English, with forced yellow English subtitles during the French sequences). While somewhat narrow sounding, dialogue, score and ambient
environmental effects are rendered with very good fidelity and no problems whatsoever.
Note: There are also optional (white) English SDH subtitles for the English language sections of the film.
A cynical wag from my relative youth, and in fact one of the people who introduced me to Ayn Rand, used to joke about the "obvious" mental illness of characters like Dominique Francon, something which probably only further reinforces and cements the weird connection between Rand, Victor Hugo and The Story of Adèle H. in my mind. Truffaut is almost resolutely dispassionate in his depiction of Adèle's descent into madness (and she's frankly already pretty deeply in even at the film's start). That distance makes the emotional connection here a bit tentative at times, but Adjani is a commanding presence and the historical milieu is beautifully realized. Technical merits are generally very strong and The Story of Adèle H. comes Highly recommended.
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