Love Like Poison (Un Poison Violent) (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	81:39 (Case: 92)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Katell Quillévéré
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Clara Augarde Lio Michel Galabru Stefano Cassetti Thierry Neuvic Youen Leboulanger-Gourvil Philippe Duclos Françoise Navarro François Bernard Catherine Riaux Margaux Louineau
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Olivier Mellano

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Un Poison Violent or Love Like Poison is a French coming-of-age film, made in 2010 and released this year on DVD in Australia. It is an interesting and challenging film made by Cote D'Ivoire born director, Katell Quillevere as her first feature. She also wrote the screenplay with collaborator Mariette Desert. For a debut feature this film is very assured, beautifully shot and certainly challenges its audience in a quiet, understated way. Some scenes, involving the young lead actress in nude and sexualised situations will offend some audiences. There are no sex scenes, per se and the nudity advances the story rather than being prurient.

     The story involves Anna (Clara Augarde), a young girl from a small village in rural Brittany who has just returned home from a term at boarding school to prepare for her confirmation in the Catholic Church. She is dismayed to discover that her father, Paul, has left the family home to live with another woman. That leaves an interesting combination of people living together in the house; Anna, her devoutly Catholic mother, Jeanne (Lio) and her ailing paternal grandfather, Jean (Michel Galabru). Jean requires nursing which falls to Anna and her mother, although the house they are living in is his. Although very unwell and dying, there is still plenty of life in Jean, certainly from a sexual perspective. Anna loves her grandfather and tries to make his life as comfortable as she can. Anna is struggling to cope with her grandfather's terminal illness, her parents’ marriage breakdown and her own growing feelings of sexuality including her budding relationship with a boy from the village, Pierre (Youen Leboulanger-Gourvil). Another important character is the local priest, Pere Francois (Stefano Cassetti) who was a childhood friend of Jeanne and obviously has some feelings for her.

     This film is beautifully made and well acted by the cast especially Clara Augarde who was around 16 at the time the film was made. Hers is a challenging role for a young woman and she succeeds admirably, being very believable as the confused Anna. My personal frustration with this film was that the story was not really rounded out, feeling more like a slice of Anna's life rather than a complete and finalised story. Although, we obviously see that Anna has progressed, too many other things are left hanging.

     This film will appeal to film buffs interested in challenging drama and foreign arthouse film.

Video

     The video quality is very good generally but not without issue.

     The feature is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced.

     The picture was quite sharp and clear. Shadow detail was very good.

     The colour is also very good, highlighting the bucolic setting.

     There was some mild grain at times (such as at 74:30) and a little macro-blocking during motion along with some fairly obvious aliasing such as at 23:05 .

     There are subtitles available in English which are clear and easy to read. They can be turned off, which is not common in foreign language films.

     There is no obvious layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio quality is very good, perfectly suited to the material.

     This disc contains a French soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1. Generally, the soundtrack was quite front focused.

     Dialogue seemed easy to understand.

     The music by Olivier Mellano is combined with some interesting French pop plus a surprisingly disconcerting choral version of Creep by Radiohead.

     The surround speakers and subwoofer supported the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu featured the choral version of Creep.

Theatrical Trailer (2:02)

    French with subtitles.

Trailers for other films

    There is a Region 2 UK version of this film from Artificial Eye which includes interviews with some cast and crew and a short film by the director.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall