Henry the 4th (Henri 4) (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Historical Epic	Gallery-Photo Trailer-x 5, but not for this film
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	148:32
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jo Baier
Studio Distributor	Eagle Entertainment	Starring	Julien Boisselier Joachim Król Andreas Schmidt Roger Casamajor Armelle Deutsch Chloé Stefani Sven Pippig Sandra Hüller Hannelore Hoger Ulrich Noethen Devid Striesow Adam Markiewicz
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Henry Jackman Hans Zimmer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English (Burned In)	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     16th Century France is wracked by religious wars. The ineffectual Catholic King Charles IX (Ulrich Noethen) rules in Paris, but the real power is exercised by his fearsome mother Queen Catherine de Medicis (Hannelore Hoger). One of the leaders of the Huguenot Protestants is King Henry III of Navarre (Julien Boisselier), a small kingdom in the south of France. In an act of reconciliation Queen Catherine offers Henry her daughter Margot (Armelle Deutsch) in marriage to Henry, and he accepts. The wedding takes place in Paris but a couple of days later the Queen initiates a slaughter of the Huguenots, a slaughter known in history as the St Bartholomew massacre. Henry survives, but is kept a prisoner in the Louvre, and converts to Catholicism.

    When Charles IX dies, the throne is taken by his brother, the homosexual Henry de Valois (Devid Striesow). On a hunting trip, Henry escapes and returns to Navarre, renounces the Catholic faith and the religious wars start all over again. After a battle Henry stops at the d’Estrees’ chateau and falls deeply in love with Gabrielle d’Estrees (Chloe Stefani) who becomes the love of his life. When the King is murdered, Henry is next in line but the Catholics in Paris will not accept a Protestant King. Henry initiates a siege of Paris, but in the end decides to again become a Catholic, alienating some of his Protestant supporters. However, he gains the Catholic support and is crowned Henry IV of France.

     His coronation does not end Henry’s troubles. Gabrielle uses her influence with the King to advance her father to positions for which he is totally unsuited, and the Spaniards invade France. However, with Gabrielle’s help in raising finance Henry defeats the Spaniards in a decisive battle. Looking to secure his throne, Henry seeks to annul his childless marriage to Margot and marry Gabrielle who is pregnant. But the Pope is unwilling to annul the marriage unless Henry marries a Catholic. As well, Henry still has plenty of enemies, and those close to him will pay a high price.

     Henry the 4th (Henri 4, or Henry of Navarre), was originally a two part German TV mini-series. It covers 50 years of tumultuous French history, a period already covered in the sumptuous Queen Margot (La reine Margot) in 1994 that starred Isabelle Adjani in the title role and which won an award at Cannes as well as a host of French Cesars. That film, as well as an earlier version made in 1954, was based on a novel published in 1845 by Alexandre Dumas Snr. In contrast, Henry the 4th is based upon the 1935 novel by Heinrich Mann (brother of Thomas Mann) so that while a lot of the events in the two stories are the same the emphasis is quite different.

     Henry the 4th follows a straightforward chronology, starting in 1563 and (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) finishing with Henry’s assassination in 1610 in Paris. Cut down from the 3 hour TV running time to just under 150 minutes, it is by necessity episodic, with the first hour covering the period to the massacre, while the period after Henry became king receiving less of an emphasis. This means also that major characters come and go, and that pivotal characters such as Gabrielle and Rosny (Roger Casamajor) do not appear for over an hour, while the character of Agrippa (Joachim Krol), who remained a close confidant of Henry for decades, flits in and out of the proceedings. I have read some criticism of Boisselier’s performance as Henry, but in a part that requires him to age 50 years while reacting to historical events he does a good job, while Chloe Stefani as Gabrielle makes the most of her screen time.

     Henry the 4th is a reasonable historical epic. The battle sequences betray a lack of budget but the sets look good and the plot generally allows the audience to follow the complex family and religious relationships of 16th Century France.

Video

     Henry the 4th is presented in a ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The IMDb lists the original TV aspect ratio of 1.78:1, but this current DVD is the theatrical release version. The Region B UK BD I own also has the ratio of 2.35:1.

     This is a nice print. The colour scheme is deliberately dull, even the Bishop’s red robes, Paris is suitably drab and many scenes look to have a brown overlay. Skin tones are good, as is sharpness, blacks and shadow detail are fine. Contrast and brightness are consistent. I saw no film are video to film artefacts.

     The burnt in English subtitles were in a clear white font and are easy to read. They are Ok but have an annoying habit of frequently omitting the apostrophe giving “youll” instead of “you’ll”, “cant” for “can’t”, “Im” for “I’m” and so on. It is the worst example I have seem of this.

    The layer change at 70:44 resulted in the slight pause.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     Audio is French Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 Kbps that is not surround encoded.

     There is nothing wrong with the audio, although it obviously lacks the enveloping feel of a 5.1 audio. Dialogue is clear, footsteps, hooves and cannon have reasonable depth. There is no surround or sub-woofer use.

     The film has a cast of German and French actors. This is the French version, and it is obvious that many of the cast were speaking German as the lip synchronisation is quite poor in a number of scenes.

     The music is credited to Henry Jackson (composer) and Hans Zimmer (producer). It had a nice epic feel and supported the visuals well.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Image Gallery

     20 film and behind the scenes stills. No music, use the remote to advance to the next still.

Movie Previews

     These trailers play on start up (and need to be skipped. They can also be selected from “Extras” in the Main Menu. Included is The Terrorist (2:32), Essential Killing (1:38), Like Dandelion Dust (2:25), Godfathers of Ganja (2:24) and Pope Joan (1:45).

     There does not appear to be a Region 1 US release of the film as yet. The Region 2 UK release is called Henry of Navarre and includes a “making of” and trailers. I own the Region B UK BD, which has the “making of”. Running only 4:27 it is not essential viewing although the trailers, one the original theatrical trailer (in German) and the other the UK trailer, are worthwhile. This gives the Region 2 a slight edge.

     Henry the 4th started life as a German TV mini-series. It is a reasonable historical epic covering the same period as the sumptuous Queen Margot (1994). The battle sequences betray a lack of budget, but the sets look good and the plot generally allows the audience to follow the complex family and religious relationships of 16th Century France.

     The video is good, the audio only a 2.0 mix. There are essentially no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall