The Two of Us



A young Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Paris is sent by his parents to the countryside to live with an elderly Catholic couple until France's liberation. Forced to hide his identity, the boy, Claude (played delicately by first-time actor Alain Cohen), bonds with the irascible, staunchly anti-Semitic Pepe (Michel Simon), who, improbably, becomes a friend and confidant to the child. Based on own childhood experiences, the poignant, light-hearted The Two of Us was acclaimed director Claude Berri's first feature film and gave legendary actor Michel Simon one of his most memorable roles at the twilight of his career.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Le poulet (1962), director Claude Berri's Oscar-winning short film, an earlier, playful take on the subject of disguise
- New video interviews, with Berri and actor Alain Cohen
- Two interviews from 1967: Berri on his family roots and identity and Michel Simon on his role
- An excerpt from a 1975 French talk-show segment, The Jewish Children of Occupied France

extras seem pretty faint to justify the higher price point

Funny. Just the other day I was thinking "Why haven't they released this movie yet?". And now here we are. The extras look alright, but I was kinda expecting a commentary from Berri after Criterion mentioned in a blog post that they'd met with him. Interviews are the next best thing, I suppose.

I'll be honest - if I buy this, it'll be for one of the extras, specifically Le Poulet, which is better than The Two of Us and is one of the most perfect short films ever made.

That said, I strongly like the feature. It's just that with so much coming out in June it'll be tough for me to decide what's high priority...

First major YAHOO of the year that's a total yawn for me. I saw this in the cinema & came close to falling asleep. Great to see Simon as always but really it's just a straight up melodrama-- worth seeing, but nothing I feel I really need in my collection.

I really don't see the value of stories like this in terms of racial dialog-- really. Using a cute little boy is about as manipulative as possible.. what's Simon supposed to say, after finding out he's Jewish: "Get this rancid little cute adorable kike fuck outa my face right now awready or furchrissakes I'm gonna bleed him over my tub!!!" Is there any real transformative moment for Simon there, is he truly "redeemed" by deciding to keep on loving the boy? It'd be different-- in terms of it's comment on racism-- if Simon turned around vs. a fat, mildly annoying man of his own age, where he really had to take a look at the truth of his bias in a highly challenging way. Anytime the target of racism is portrayed as something snuggly or completely harmless or devoid of annoying/negative qualities, the film becomes Spielbergian horseshit to me. If the lead wasn't played by Simon, nobody would care a dry snot about this film. It'd be as forgotten as Ruth Buzzie.

Who could forget Ruth Buzzi?

one of the worst phrases I know of

I think this has been an excellent year so far and to me this is one of the highlights. I am very excited about this release.

I could be completely wrong, and it has been a while, but I thought Simon never finds out that the boy is Jewish. I remember that being the saving grace of this film for me.

I remember liking this film a lot and I need to revisit it.

as for the disc, I am disappointed that neither this or Death of a Cyclist came with a commentary track.

Listed as OOP on Criterion's website

I have to imagine this is a sign of an upgrade. Pathe is credited on the back and as far as I know there's no problems between them and Criterion.

Does anyone know why this is OOP? I need a copy to round out my 300's and noticed it was close to $200!

What's going on here I wonder....

They're still streaming it in places so I assume they are prepping a Blu.

Thanks knives. So maybe I'll just wait it out.

Is there a thread on films where the blu-ray release has significantly less supplemental material than the original DVD release? I'm thinking of movies like The Last Emperor, Mishima, etc. I could have sworn this thread existed.

Or would I just have to look through individual threads?

There's no such thread, but off the top of my head, the BD releases of Carnival of Souls and The Tin Drum shed a lot of the DVD supplements.

Mishima has never been upgraded.

Whoops! Maybe that'll turn into a forecast.

On another note, I sense that there are some divergent views on The Two of Us. Merely because of the distasteful racial slurs or due to being a poor film?

To these two I'll add:
Beauty and the Beast DVD(1998 release) had a 20-minute PBS (?) doc that was dropped from subsequent releases
Fanny and Alexander DVD had a selection of short Bergman introductions to his films that were dropped from the Blu-ray
Short Cuts, The River, and Straw Dogs DVDs all had BBC docs that were dropped from the Blu-rays.

Although, at least, those introductions have been added to the individual releases of each film, as they've been re-released [some have yet to be re-released, but I assume the introduction(s) will be included when they are].

I like it, but some people (as discussed in this thread) dislike how the film builds sympathy for Simon's character. Most such arguments I've seen on that don't make sense since they suppose a redemption for him through a revelation the film never delivers.

The Tin Drum DVD and BluRay are really complementary releases, as not only are the supplements different, but they feature different versions of the film. Probably the least overlap between two formats of a Criterion release.