A French Woman (Une Femme Française) (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Filmographies-Cast & Crew Gallery-Photo Trailer-Remember Me, Facing Windows, Tom White, Since Otar Left
Rating	?
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	94:24
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Régis Wargnier
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Emmanuelle Béart Daniel Auteuil Gabriel Barylli Jean-Claude Brialy Geneviève Casile Michel Etcheverry Laurence Masliah Jean-Noël Brouté Isabelle Guiard François Caron Maria Fitzi Samuel Le Bihan Heinz Bennent
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Patrick Doyle

    Jeanne (Emmanuelle Béart) meets Louis (Daniel Auteuil) when his father collapses whilst they are on the way to the wedding of Louis' brother. Within a year they are married, but the war intervenes and Louis is imprisoned. When Henry (Samuel le Bihan), who was imprisoned with Louis, is released he goes to see Jeanne, and it isn't long before they are having an affair. Once the war ends and Louis is released, he reconciles with Jeanne despite the hostility of his family. In order to escape the gossip after the birth of twins, Louis accepts a post with the army occupying Berlin.

    In Berlin, Jeanne meets the son of the owner of the house they are billeted in, Mathias (Gabriel Barylli) and they are attracted to each other. After Louis volunteers to serve in Indochina, Jeanne returns with the children to Nancy, and soon after Mathias follows them. Jeanne plans to run away with Mathias but her plans are thwarted by Louis' family. Louis again reconciles with Jeanne and accepts a posting to Syria...

    You can probably see a pattern emerging here. Apparently inspired by his own mother's life, director and co-writer Régis Wargnier has fashioned here another film not dissimilar to his other international releases Indochine and East-West, in that it deals with the travails of a woman whose passions are frustrated by both the society and the marriage she finds herself in. And not unlike those two films, the film is superficial. While the production design is excellent, capturing the appearance and spirit of the 1940s and 1950s, the film fails to delve beneath the surface of the characters. What is it (apart from her physical appearance) that Louis sees in this unfaithful woman? What does she see in him, and any of her lovers? These questions remain unanswered.

    Wargnier is obviously trying to create a melodrama in the style of Douglas Sirk, something made obvious by the use of two clips from Sirk films which are seen in a cinema: Battle Hymn and Written on the Wind. However, these appear during the film at a time when Louis is back in Indochina. France left Indochina in mid-1956 and neither of these films were released in Europe until 1957, so the use of the clips here is anachronistic.

    Béart is radiant as usual, and gives a strong performance. Auteuil, who was married to Béart at the time, tends to look puzzled most of the time, and in the few scenes where he is required to look angry or upset merely takes on the appearance of a dog that has been scolded (perhaps that is the point). The story meanders along until a point at which the authors seem to have decided to end it, rather than coming to a conclusion. If you want to spend an hour and a half gazing at Béart, then this movie certainly delivers, but for something entertaining or thought-provoking, you will need to look elsewhere. The two leads are better seen in Un Coeur en Hiver, which sadly is not available on DVD in Region 4 yet.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.44:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. The original aspect ratio was 2.35:1, and this format cannot even be seen during the opening and closing credits, where a widescreen format is shown at about 1.73:1. While there is no obvious cropping, I would be assuming that this is a pan and scan transfer, not an open matte one.

    The transfer is quite sharp and clear, with a satisfactory level of detail. Contrast is very good, but shadow detail tends to vary. In some shots, there are details visible in black hair and dark suits, but in other shots such detail vanishes. I suspect this is a feature of the original filming.

    Colour is generally okay, but reds are oversaturated. Jeanne's bright red dress is too red, and the red insignia on the military uniforms seems unnatural. Flesh tones are well rendered. Blacks are solid in brightly lit sequences, but in darker parts of the film they have a whitish sheen and some noise over them.

    I am convinced that this transfer comes from the master used for the VHS release and is not a new transfer. While it looks sharper than VHS, there are several problems which suggest a video master. During darker sequences there are visible pale bars across the screen. At the bottom of the screen there is a distortion caused by tracking errors, especially noticeable during the Syrian scenes. And there is a serious tracking error early in the film at 5:57, which causes vertical colour bars to appear very briefly in the lower half of the frame.

    The transfer seems to have come from first generation print material judging by the sharpness of the image, but there are a lot of film artefacts. These are mainly white flecks and dirt, though I also saw the occasional hair.

    Subtitles are provided in English. These are burned-in white subtitles which were created by a French subtitling firm, presumably for overseas prints of the film. They are well-timed and there are no problems with grammar. American spelling is used, for example "theater" and "Mom".

    This is a single layer disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The sole audio track is French Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. There is no surround encoding.

    Dialogue is clear throughout. It is mainly French, so I cannot comment on how intelligible it is. The sound is a little strident and occasionally harsh. There is no noticeable hiss nor any crackles or pops. Audio sync is just about perfect.

    The music score by Patrick Doyle is a little lush at times, which is in keeping with the apparent aim of the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio and Animation

    The main menu is animated with scenes from the film, while some of the score plays in the background.

Filmographies

    Brief and incomplete film listings for the two stars and the director.

Photo Gallery

    A series of 10 stills from the film.

Trailers-Remember Me, Facing Windows, Tom White, Since Otar Left (7:35)

    Trailers for other releases from this distributor.

    As far as I can tell, this film is not otherwise available on DVD.

    A fairly uninteresting film redeemed only by the performance of Emmanuelle Béart.

    The video quality is disappointing.

    The audio quality is average.

    There are no substantial extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall