6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A film director, Jean, his producer, Marc, and his assistant, Lucette, board the Trans-Europ-Express in Paris bound for Antwerp. Once in their compartment it occurs to them that the drama of life aboard the train presents possibilities for a film, and they begin to write a script about dope smuggling. Subsequently, they see actor Jean-Louis Trintignant walking through the station. As seen through the eyes of Jean, Marc, and Lucette, Trintignant becomes Elias, the chief character in the script. Elias is going to Antwerp to pick up a suitcase of cocaine for delivery to an international organization based in Paris.
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marie-France Pisier, Christian Barbier (I), Raoul Guylad, Henri LambertForeign | 100% |
Thriller | 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
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
More often associated with literature than with cinema, Alain Robbe-Grillet nonetheless made his mark on both, with fractured, circular, and/or self-
reflexive non-narratives that consciously pushed against what was expected of the two mediums. In the mid-1950s, his novels Le Voyeur and
La Jalousie established him as a key figure in the development of the Nouveau Roman (New Novel), a movement, caught in the gray
area between modernism and postmodernism, that attempted to do for fiction what the imminent Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) would do for
film—unhinge itself from the bourgeois "tradition of quality"-type storytelling of the 19th and early 20th centuries. "Plot" and "character" would no
longer be givens, and meta or non-linear narratives, along with other experimental forms, took the place of "straight" stories.
A key difference between the New Novelists and the New Wavers, however, was the role of authorial intent. While the former group sought to excise
the personal from their work, the latter placed an importance on directorial style and outlook and authority, which the critic-filmmakers at Cahiers
du Cinéma dubbed "auteur theory." For as much as Robbe-Grillet downplayed his own individual creative function in his novels—he once wrote,
“They are saying that the writer has a worldview, a sort of truth that he wishes to communicate, and that his writing has an ulterior significance. I am
against this”—when it comes to cinema, he is unreservedly an auteurist, with a vision and peculiarities that are all his own.
In his screenwriting debut, 1961's cryptic Last Year at Marienbad, he's credited as "co-auteur" with director Alain Resnais, and on the basis of
that film's success—it was nominated for that year's "Original Screenplay" Oscar and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival—he launched his
own directorial career, characterized by a defiantly kinky eroticism and oblique, inverted takes on the murder mystery and detective genres. His films
were never as successful as those of his New Wave contemporaries, and historically, they've been hard to track down on home video in the U.S., where
they've never officially been released. That changes this year, however, as Kino-Lorber—under their Redemption Films label—are releasing six of Robbe-
Grillet's films, starting this month with Trans-Europ-Express and Successive Slidings of Pleasure.
"Newly remastered in HD from the original 35mm elements"—as it says on the back of the case—Kino/Redemption's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer of Trans-Europ-Express is true to source and free of major distractions. Some minor, age-related print damage remains, but nothing more than occasional specks. (And compared to some of other films released under the Redemption label, this one is practically pristine.) Be forewarned; the film's 35mm grain pattern is quite heavy, but this is vastly preferable to an image that's been scrubbed of all texture with digital noise reduction. "Filmic," then, is a good way to describe the picture, which isn't exactly sharp—because of the chunky grain—but clearly benefits from its new high definition resolution. Tonally, the image is well-adapted here as well. There are some slight inconsistencies and fluctuations in contrast, but generally, whites are never blown out, black levels are never oppressive, and there's a rich spectrum of grays between the two. Really, we couldn't have asked for better for a film of this era and budget, especially considering that Trans-Europ-Express was only previously available via bootlegs and imports.
Similarly, the disc's uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 audio track has its share of age and source-related quirks—some light muffling, a limited dynamic range for Michel Fano's score, a few rare crackles—but nothing even remotely distracting or harsh. For the most part, the French dialogue comes through clearly, and there are no noticeable hisses or dropouts. The disc features only English subtitles, which appear in easy-to-read white lettering.
lt wasn't his first film—that would be 1963's French/Turkish co-production L'Immortelle—but Trans-Europ-Express is the ideal introduction to the cinema of Alain Robbe-Grillet. All of the director's hallmarks are here in a nascent stage—double agents and doppelgangers, fragmented plotting and S&M kink, self-referentialism and the toying with genre—and while the story is ultimately a shaggy dog tale leading nowhere, the journey, in this case, is the destination. Recommended for literature majors, connesueirs of 1960s euro-tica, and anyone interested in the lesser- seen films of the French New Wave.
Glissements progressifs du plaisir
1974
N. Took the Dice
1971
L'homme qui ment / L'uomo che mente
1968
The Immortal One
1963
L'éden et après
1970
À plein temps / Slipcover in Original Pressing
2021
Le livre d'image
2018
2011
Visages villages
2017
Chronique d'un été
1961
1981
Les Rivières Pourpres
2000
2015
L'affaire Farewell
2009
天注定 / Tian zhu ding
2013
1938
L'Assassin habite... au 21
1942
L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot
2009
36 quai des Orfèvres
2004
2003