My Man (Mon Homme) (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo Filmographies-Cast & Crew Trailer-My Wife Is An Actress, Angela, Read My Lips Trailer-Like Two Crocodiles
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	94:48
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Bertrand Blier
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Anouk Grinberg Gérard Lanvin Valeria Bruni Tedeschi Olivier Martinez Dominique Valadié Jacques François Michel Galabru Robert Hirsch Bernard Fresson Jacques Gamblin Jean-Pierre Darroussin Bernard Le Coq Jean-Philippe Écoffey
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.93:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I remember seeing this film some years ago on SBS, however I could not remember too much about it. As someone who generally enjoys European films, I decided to give the disc a review.

    Mon Homme (My Man) is an attempt at a surreal black comedy about sexuality by director Bertrand Blier, probably most well known for his award winning Too Beautiful for You starring Gerard Depardieu.

    The story involves Marie Arbath (Anouk Grinberg who looks remarkably similar to Juliette Binoche), a very successful prostitute who obviously enjoys her work. She seems quite happy to give her wares away for free if the mood takes her. After an evening's work which she did not seem to enjoy, she discovers a vagrant, Jeannot (Gerard Lanvin) sleeping rough in the entry to her building. He asks her for small change, but instead she takes him to her apartment, feeds him, gives him wine, provides a warm place to sleep and invites him to have sex with her. Seemingly on the same evening, she falls in love with him and asks him to become her pimp and take all her earnings. The rest of the film follows their story, and how he mistreats her including spending her money on other women.

    I found it very difficult to understand Marie's motivations for her actions. At the beginning of the film she is shown to be an independent, fun-loving woman with a thriving business she enjoys. Within five minutes of meeting a filthy bum she is throwing herself and her money at him. Bertrand Blier has been accused of misogynism in his films and I can only think that this is where this plotline stems from. Anouk Grinberg does a good job with a very difficult character and won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Best Actress. There are a few funny sections of the film, but the comedy generally does not shine through and by the end of the film you feel quite sad about Marie's situation.

    This film is certainly not for the prudish and contains many sex scenes, some quite explicit.

    So, if this sounds interesting to you or you are a fan of the director, you may want to check this film out, however I cannot really recommend it very highly.

Video

    The video quality is poor, especially considering that this film was only made in 1996.

    The feature is presented in a 1.93:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is not the original aspect ratio. This film was originally 2.35:1 and has obviously been cropped. You can see it most clearly in the opening credits where some of the letters are chopped off on the left hand side. I have deducted one star from the overall video rating accordingly.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp throughout, however, some scenes were a bit fuzzy and there was grain throughout. Luckily, there was no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was at best reasonable.

    The colour was reasonable throughout although the street scenes looked a little washed out.

    There were significant artefacts presents including constant specks, flecks and hairs. There are reel change marks regularly throughout the movie. The first I noticed was at 19:36. A vertical yellow line appeared at 79:40. There is quite a bit of aliasing present including the main actress' eyes at 7:15 and followed by plates, railings, bar stools, shutters, a shirt and various other items of clothing. Even the subtitles were aliasing!

    There are burned-in English subtitles which obviously cannot be turned off. Interestingly, the subtitles on the trailer included on the disc are in better English than the ones on the feature. They are easy to read which is good.

    This is a single layer disc so no layer change is present.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is fine but nothing special.

    This DVD contains one audio option, a French Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s. This track seems to be virtually mono.

    Dialogue was generally clear and easy to understand.

    The music used in this film was a strange mixture of Barry White and the modern classical composer Gorecki. It did seem to suit the film and I personally never mind hearing Barry White. There did not seem to be a score as such.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included photos from the film and a scene selection function.

Theatrical Trailer (1:32)

    The trailer is presented in 4x3 but letterboxed. It contains better subtitles than the feature.

Photo Gallery

    Approximately 50 stills from the film and behind the scenes.

Filmographies

    Text listing of films involving Anouk Grinberg, Gerard Lanvin & Bertrand Blier.

Trailers

    Extra trailers are included for My Wife is an Actress, Angela, Read My Lips & Like Two Crocodiles.

    This movie is available in France (Region 2) but I cannot find any details of this release. It does not seem to be available in any other region. I will give the tentative nod to the French release because it could not possibly be as ordinary as this.

    The video quality is poor.

    The audio quality is reasonable.

    The disc has a small selection of not very interesting extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall