French DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Recommendations

[tenia]

The migration is getting complicated indeed. The site is still offline until my former colleagues find a solution, but they're aiming at it not being discontinued (as it'd definitely feel like a huge loss to us in terms of content lost) and they have an internal backup in the worst case (though it's a few months old).

Thanks for the link in any case ! I did see the effects in the site's stats !

[Aunt Peg]

Martin Provost's How to Be a Good Wife (2020) has been released on DVD only in Australia. Needles to say there are English subtitles.

As far as I know there is no other physical media release with English subtitles to date.

[swo17]

[DarkImbecile]

[tenia]

I'll be covering within the next few days the April releases of Coin de mire, which includes 5 new 4K restorations : Fanfan la tulipe, Brelan d'as, Les grandes manoeuvres, La poudre d'escampette et Les granges brûlées (the 6th title, Souvenirs perdus, is from a HD master, which looks very nice though).
Here is already the review for Les granges brûlées, in French but with HD screenshots.

[L.A.]

La Tragédie impériale / Rasputin (Marcel L'Herbier, 1937)

When did this come out?

[djvaso]

La Tragédie impériale / Rasputin (Marcel L'Herbier, 1937)

When did this come out?

In February 2020.

[Stefan Andersson]

"Queimada" announced for Bluray and DVD in France, from Rimini Editions, distributed by Arcadès. Contains both the 112m. version (French & English dub, I assume VOST( = Version originale sous-titré en francais) indicates the English dub), and the 132m. version, Italian dub, with French subs. But dvdfr.com is not always correct on info about subs. Best to wait for disc reviews:
https://www.dvdfr.com/dvd/f168607-queimada.html

[spectre]

This new Häxan blu-ray from Potemkine – man, if I could speak French, let me tell you…

https://store.potemkine.fr/dvd/2000000057989-haxan/

[pistolwink]

[]

[Stefan Andersson]

Tests of French blu discs of Robert Hossein´s "Le goût de la violence" (1961), restored in 2016, and James Foley´s "After Dark My Sweet":
https://testsbluray.com/2021/06/20/test ... -violence/
https://testsbluray.com/2021/06/20/test ... -my-sweet/

After Dark My Sweet has optional French subs. Region B.
Le goût de la violence has a French audio track and French subs. The B/W image seems to be lightly colored. Regions ABC. Update: According to the ImdB, this is an European western about Latin American guerrillas fighting a dictatorial government.

Also, Louis Jouvet and Daniel Gélin in "Une histoire d´amour" (1951):
https://testsbluray.com/2021/06/19/test ... re-damour/
Regions ABC, French HOH subs only.

[Adam X]

Thanks Stefan. It’s been a while since I watched it, but I imagine while dated, After Dark, My Sweet’d be from a more recent master than the US DVD (hopefully)?

Also, can someone say (tenia?), is the interview in english? Nice to finally have something extra to go with Foley’s film.

[tenia]

I'd need to double check since it's been a few weeks since I had a look at this extra but I believe it's in English with French subs.
The master is OK though probably not new. It has a bit of EE, mostly visible when the shots make it more visible so it's not too intrusive. Honestly it's quite OK for a BD. I gave it 8 out of 10 on PQ, could have been 7.5 but that's about this kind of quality. Let's say upper end of pre-existing HD masters.

Le gout de la violence indeed has a colored B&W, possibly from the encode, but it's not pure B&W anyway.

[Adam X]

Thanks for that, tenia. Now I just need to find a place that’ll ship it to Australia (not that common since we’ve been living with this pandemic)!

[spectre]

Adam, as an Australian customer I usually find FNAC pretty reliable for French discs (just purchased the two new Potemkine Rivette releases through them). Here's their listing for the Foley film:

https://www.fnac.com/a15788346/After-Da ... ic-Blu-ray

[Adam X]

Thanks for that, though I was thinking more that a number of countries haven’t been shipping here. So is France doing so now, as far as you know?

[Aunt Peg]

FNAC as far as I know is still shipping to Australia but the shipping costs are extremely high. Always have been.

[Adam X]

Thanks, Aunt Peg. Might give them a go.

[spectre]

Thanks for that, though I was thinking more that a number of countries haven’t been shipping here. So is France doing so now, as far as you know?

Yep, just ordered from them a few weeks ago. Shipping was expensive (23 euros, or A$37, for two discs), but I think that's the best I could find. Sometimes it pays to go through the sites themselves – Re:voir, for instance (which I've ordered from plenty of times), only charges 6 euros for shipping to Australia, which is astoundingly good. Potemkine on the other hand is even pricier than FNAC (25 euros shipping for a single disc on their site).

[Adam X]

Thanks furbicide. I guess, given as recent as a few months ago, Germany & Austria were still not shipping here, I assumed France would be the same.

[Stefan Andersson]

Coin de Mire Cinéma in France announces a new label, "Emeraude" (emerald-coloured covers), featuring a bluray and a UHD 4K disc, for release around October 2022.

Planned titles:
"L'homme de Rio" -new 4K restoration
"Le salaire de la peur"
"Les diaboliques"

Re-editions from TF1´s "Héritage" label (edition prestige or émeraude):
- "Panique" de Duvivier, TF1 disc OOP
- "Le carosse d'or" de Renoir, TF1 disc OOP
- "Garde à vue" de Miller, TF1 disc OOP
- "Gueule d'amour" de Grémillon

Source:
several posts here: https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... &start=840

[eerik]

Potemkine are going 4K UHD with Kieslowski in November.

• The Double Life of Veronique
• Three Colours Trilogy

Both scheduled for 2nd November.

[mhofmann]

Potemkine are going 4K UHD with Kieslowski in November.

• The Double Life of Veronique
• Three Colours Trilogy

Both scheduled for 2nd November.

Ooohhh, great — just ordered, thanks!

[Stefan Andersson]

Don´t really know the best thread for this news, but it originates in France:
On social media, French label Spectrum Films announce that Sony will raise their production costs for bluray discs etc. effective October 1, because of cost increases due to Covid:
https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... start=1020 - scroll down to message Aug. 20, 2021

French label Coin de mire Cinéma will release Clair´s Tout l´or du monde (1961), Granier-Deferre´s L´Étoile du Nord (1982), Vadim´s Les liaisons dangereuses (1960), Grémillon´s Le ciel est a vous (1944) and many other titles:
https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... &start=855 - scroll down to message Sept. 14, 2021

[Stefan Andersson]

Mention of an upcoming bluray/dvd box of Volkoff´s Casanova, co-produced by Giornate del Cinema Muto and Cinematheque Francaise:
https://www.ilfriuliveneziagiulia.it/ca ... e-blu-ray/