The Ax (Couperet, Le) (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Black Comedy	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer Trailer-The Five Obstructions; Mystery Train Notes-Director Biography & Filmography
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	117:16 (Case: 120)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (60:35)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Costa-Gavras
Studio Distributor	Potential Films Madman Entertainment	Starring	José Garcia Karin Viard Geordy Monfils Christa Theret Ulrich Tukur Olivier Gourmet Yvon Back Thierry Hancisse Olga Grumberg Yolande Moreau Dieudonné Kabongo Jean-Pierre Gos Vanessa Larré
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Armand Amar

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English-American	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Bruno Davert (José Garcia) has it all; a loving wife, two straight, healthy teenage kids and a rewarding career as an executive in paper engineering. Life couldn't be much better, but it sure could get a whole lot worse, and it does when a corporate decision is made to relocate the company to Romania. Initially Bruno sees the freedom and large redundancy payout as empowering, but after two years of job hunting he is becoming worn down. His wife (Karin Viard) is juggling two part-time jobs and the family unit is becoming strained under financial pressures. Cable TV has been cut off in their home, along with the internet, and their teenage son, Maxime, turns to shoplifting in order to earn some pocket money. Times are tough!

    Rather than continue the frustrating cycle of mailing out résumés and attending predictable interviews, Bruno hatches a plan to create a vacancy that will suit his qualifications down to the letter. But, in order to guarantee selection he must eliminate the competition as well. He places a bogus advert in the local press and gleans important info regarding his main rivals with a view to taking them out, one by one. His situation is becoming more desperate, but does Bruno have the courage to match his convictions?

    The Ax (Le Couperet) is an engaging black comedy, with plenty of thrilling moments to boot. Director Costa-Gavras has blended numerous styles to great effect, treading a fine line between stylish noir, comedic ineptitude and scathing social satire. The performances are equally impressive, particularly from the strained Davert family. Anyone who's ever been indefinitely unemployed could certainly relate to this entertaining thriller.

Video

    This film was produced in 35mm and was shown theatrically in a matted aspect ratio of 1.85:1. This DVD transfer is true to that presentation, with 16x9 enhancement included. This is a very strong transfer, with only one major issue to report.

    The transfer is beautifully sharp and clear throughout. Shadow detail is excellent, as represented by quite a few dark scenes such as at 93:15 inside the dark house. There is no low level noise evident in the transfer.

    The film's colour scheme is a little drab in places, which I'm certain is an artistic decision. Otherwise, the colour palette is solid and there are absolutely no rendering issues to be concerned about.

    The video stream has been encoded with a constant MPEG bitrate of 8.6Mb/s, which is great. There are absolutely no compression issues to speak of, in fact this is one of the best looking standard definition transfers I have seen of late. The source print is in very good condition, so there are no noticeable film artefacts in the slightest. I noted a couple of scenes that contain a mild amount of visible film grain, but this is only a very minor complaint.

    English subtitles are included, with a font comprised of a yellow, SBS-style text. There are Americanisms present in the translation, such as 'Fall' instead of Autumn and 'miles' where the French dialogue clearly says 'kilometers'. I found I was unable to switch the default subtitle stream off, either via the set-up menu or on the fly. This makes the set-up menu and "English subtitles on/off" option seem pretty silly.

    This disc is dual layered (DVD9 formatted), with the layer transition placed near the halfway mark at 60:35.The transition was transparent on my system.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks accompanying this film on DVD, both in the film's original French language. The default soundtrack is a very nice French Dolby Digital 5.1, encoded at 448Kb/s. I sampled the French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) alternative.

    The dialogue is prominent at all times, and although my comprehension of French is rough, I never felt the spoken word was neglected in the mix. The ADR is completely seamless. Audio sync is similarly accurate.

    The surround channels are generally occupied by the score's tense percussion and a few atmospheric elements in key scenes. Gunshots can be heard ringing in the rear speakers when necessary, so this is a fairly active soundtrack in most respects. Voices are generally confined to the front centre channel and rarely stray.

    The stereo soundtrack option can be manually selected from the set-up menu or on the fly. I found it a little quieter in comparison to the surround default, however it was very responsive to Pro Logic IIx processing.

    The score by Armand Amar is outstanding in its simplicity, harbouring a rich, string-driven chamber music element that is neatly laced with inventive percussion. It is quite unique and complements the sometimes quirky atmosphere of the film ideally.

    The subwoofer is surprisingly active in the default soundtrack, accentuating gunfire and other effects, such as the loud drums at 43:00. There is also a major explosion later in the film that utilises the LFE channel to great effect.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio

Theatrical Trailer (1:28)

    This widescreen trailer includes burned-in subtitles and is not 16x9 enhanced.

Madman Trailers (2)

    Trailers are included for The Five Obstructions and Mystery Train. These are preceded by an anti-piracy advert.

Director Biography & Filmography

    As with other Director's Suite titles, the inside of the cover slick contains info that is well worth reading.

• Making-of Documentary
• Costa-Gavras interview
• José Garcia interview
• Filmographies

    I suspect there are no English subtitles on this version, and there doesn't appear to be any UK or Region 1 version yet. Ours is a good release for English speakers.

    The video transfer is excellent, but the subtitles cannot be removed for some reason.

    The audio transfer is great.

    There are no real extras to speak of.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall