You Will Be My Son (2011)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Madman Propaganda x 4
Rating
Year Of Production	2011
Running Time	97:12
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:13)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gilles Legrand
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Niels Arestrup Lorànt Deutsch Patrick Chesnais Anne Marivin Nicolas Bridet Valérie Mairesse Jean-Marc Roulot Urbain Cancelier Xavier Robic Nicolas Marié Hélène de Saint-Père
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Armand Amar

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English (Burned In)	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Paul de Marseul (Niels Arestrup) is the aging patriarch of a prestigious family owned vineyard and winery. His foreman of many years Francois (Patrick Chesnais) is dying of cancer with 6 months to live. Paul’s son Martin (Lorant Deutsch) has a degree in winemaking and is eager to take over the harvest operations but Paul disparages Martin and takes every opportunity to belittle and insult him. When Francois’s son Philippe (Nicolas Bridet) returns from his winemaking job in California to be with his father, Paul takes the decision to give Philippe charge of the harvest, sidelining his own son. Martin resents the choice and has drunken words with Philippe, who decides to leave. However Paul has other plans; he decides to adopt Philippe and make Philippe his son and heir, leaving him the estate. But Paul’s determination to reject Martin affects two families, for the dying Francois is appalled, and leads to tragic consequences.

     You Will Be My Son (Tu seras mon fils) director Gillies Legrand is better known as a producer, with films such as Micmacs (2009) to his credit. Here he gets great performances from his cast, especially Niels Arestrup who makes the unlikeable, bull headed and abrasive Paul very real and believable. However, the others are also very good with Patrick Chesnais, Lorant Deutsch and Anne Marivin, as Martin’s wife Alice standing out, making the dynamics within two families come alive in subtle ways. The film also looks fabulous, with beautiful images of the flowing French vineyards and countryside courtesy of cinematographer Yves Angelo, who has won three Cesar Awards in France, the last for Germinal (1993).

     You Will Be My Son is a film about family, loyalty, power and wine. The film begins and ends with a funeral, although at the start we do not know who has died, and it moves forward much like a tragic opera in its intensity. There is an inevitability about events fuelled by Paul’s strong will and his constant disparagement of Martin and his determination not to allow Martin to take charge of the family estate. From what we see of Martin he does not appear to warrant Paul’s dislike and harassment and he is also respected by the experienced Francois. Clearly, there is something else behind Paul’s actions, but by the time Martin, and indeed the audience, discovers what this is it is too late to change the course of events.

     You Will Be My Son is a powerful, compelling and very watchable film, fuelled by the strong script, excellent performances, beautiful cinematography and copious bottles of fine wine. An excellent vintage.

Video

     You Will Be My Son is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original theatrical ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     As noted, this is a beautiful looking print. The image is sharp and the colours of the fields, vineyards, houses and interiors are natural and rich. Within the dark wine cellar, blacks are solid and shadow detail great; one can see the dust accumulating on the old bottles. The red of the red wines looks rich, and mouth-watering. Sometimes skin tones took on a yellowish look under lights in the cellar, but otherwise they were natural, while contrast and brightness was consistent.

     There was light pleasing film grain, ghosting with movement against background vines, aliasing against rails and some noise reduction in darker scenes, but nothing distracting.

     The layer change at 52:13 was noticeable. On the first review disc I received in the minutes after the layer change the DVD hung up a number of times on my two different players before skipping ahead to the next chapter. The replacement disc supplied by Madman still had a noticeable pause at the layer change, and froze up once at 54:06 before jumping ahead slightly. While still not perfect, at least I did get to finish the film.

    Burnt in subtitles in American English are in an easy to read white font and seemed to be timely. I did not notice any spelling or grammatical errors.

     A great looking print, but with some technical issues to do with the layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     The only audio choice is French Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps.

     Dialogue was clean and centred. This is not a film requiring sonic fireworks but the surrounds and rears were frequently utilised for music, weather effects such as the wind and thunder, the winemaking presses and machinery and vehicles. The sub-woofer provided some extra bass to thunder and machinery.

    Lip synchronisation was good.

     The original score by Armand Amar was quite epic for a dialogue driven film, sometimes sounding operatic in scale and intensity. However, it supported the visuals well and was never overpowering.

     The audio track was good.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer (1:55)

Madman Propaganda

     Trailers for Copacabana (2:09), Summer Coda (2:18), The Grocer’s Son (1:45) and Le Havre (2:22).

     There is no current Region 1 US release of You Will Be My Son. The Region 2 UK seems identical to ours. The Region 2 French version does have extras including an audio commentary by the director Gilles Legrand and cast member Lorant Deutsch, interviews and a couple of other featurettes. The feature is listed as having English subtitles, but I don’t know if subtitles are available for the extras.

     You Will Be My Son is a powerful, compelling and very watchable film, fuelled by the strong script, excellent performances by Niels Arestrup, Patrick Chesnais, Lorant Deutsch and Anne Marivin and beautiful cinematography by Yves Angelo.

     The video looks beautiful but has some issues, the audio is very good. A trailer is the only relevant extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall