Carlotta Releases

[Black Hat]

That's really cool news – I've only ever seen L'adolescente but quite liked it, and the only copies of that and Lumiere floating around have always been pretty rough quality. The Gish documentary sounds intriguing too!

What with this and the Eustache set, looks like 2024 is already shaping up to be a big year for Carlotta

All three are very good, the Gish doc is especially fascinating and Lumiere is awesome if you like Jeanne Moreau in any way.

[tenia]

I absolutely hated Lumière, which felt like a bingo of the worst French artsy cinema clichés.

L'adolescente, on the other hand, flew by at a breezy pace.

[GoodOldNeon]

Hi tenia,

Will you be reviewing the Béla Tarr boxset that was recently released by Carlotta?

[tenia]

I haven't received it yet but I will - I cover every Carlotta release.

[yoloswegmaster]

Didn't know we had a dedicated Carlotta thread. I posted this a month ago in a different thread but it should be more known that Carlotta will be releasing Stray Dog, Ikiru, The Lower Depths, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, and High and Low on 4K next year.

[nicolas]

Didn't know we had a dedicated Carlotta thread. I posted this a month ago in a different thread but it should be more known that Carlotta will be releasing Stray Dog, Ikiru, The Lower Depths, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, and High and Low on 4K next year.

Wow, wow, wow! Where did you get that info from? This is insane. They cracked Toho! If this is indeed true, I’ll try and get rid of my Japanese UHDs as soon as possible.

Re. the Béla Tarr set. I don’t want to take anything away from tenia’s upcoming review but a brief hint: It’s a spectacular release with four incredible David M / FiM encodes. Criterion’s upcoming Wreckmeister Harmonies is already dead on arrival when it comes to the encode. David squeezed every bit out of that one.

[therewillbeblus]

Damn, frustrating for Carlotta to put so much passion into a release like that and not make them English-friendly

[Matt]

Might they be contractually obligated to include subtitles only for the territory for which they have been licensed (despite languages not respecting national borders)? I think I remember someone from a UK label once saying as much.

[tenia]

They indeed are contractually limited to French subs only (and in a very few occasions, forced subs even).

[MichaelB]

The general rule is that you can include your own language (“your own” being the official languages of the territory that you’ve licensed) and the language of the film (if different) - hence Indicator including the German dub of Invincible; technically it’s an English-language film, but it’s a German production.

(The German dub is quite interesting because two of the three lead actors weren’t professionals and weren’t acting in their native languages, so arguably come across better when dubbed by proper actors. But Tim Roth doesn’t, so it’s swings and roundabouts.)

But I recall a three-way deal involving the Quay Brothers shorts compilation back in 2006; everyone agreed to region-lock (even though the BFI wasn’t contractually obliged to), the US release had a six-month delay (or something similar), while the French release could come out at the same time as the UK one but couldn’t be English-friendly. That way the BFI protected its considerable investment in the restorations by ensuring that UK-based customers would most likely favour their own release.

[tenia]

Which is even now still something contractually enforced despite importing remaining quite a marginal approach. I remember, on top of that, TF1 DA telling me that it could be a problem for them when a foreign label release a French movie of their catalogue without forced subs like the BFI did with Classe tous risques... but then, the TF1 Video stopped years ago to do BD releases and Classe tous risques still doesn't have a BD release in France !

[MichaelB]

I've never been contractually required to have forced subs on anything that I worked on, although I don't work very often with foreign-language material these days. The time I was anticipating it was with the Argos-licensed Borowczyk titles back in 2014, as they usually do require forced subs, but for some reason they didn't with this project. (Maybe this was in acknowledgement for the fact that we'd restored some of their films, which they were then free to license to others in 1080p versions?)

Sometimes extras have burned-in subs, but there's usually nothing that we can realistically do about that - regular examples being the stuff licensed from INA in France, which invariably have burned-in French subtitles if they're in another language. But the original raw footage almost certainly no longer exists, and would certainly cost a lot more to scan and subtitle, possibly to the extent of no longer making that extra viable.

Incidentally, huge thanks for the tip-off about the Kurosawa 4Ks and the Tarr box, especially the latter. Hungarian with French subtitles is fine, I have the technical wherewithal to replace them anyway, and I'll only be double-dipping on Damnation.

[rapta]

Didn't know we had a dedicated Carlotta thread. I posted this a month ago in a different thread but it should be more known that Carlotta will be releasing Stray Dog, Ikiru, The Lower Depths, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, and High and Low on 4K next year.

This is, indeed, huge news. I wonder how BFI or Criterion haven't managed this kind of thing yet. Might be a good sign though, perhaps 2024 will be the year we finally see some of these masterpieces in 4K (and English friendly).

[furbicide]

The listing for the Eustache set has gone up on FNAC. At first glance, it seems to include everything he made except for Le cochon:

https://www.fnac.com/a19371252/Coffret- ... ud-Blu-ray

As suspected, no English subtitles are mentioned on the product listing, however – just French hard-of-hearing.

[Peacock]

It appears to be missing Bad Company which is such a shame as some might say it forms part of a very unofficial trilogy with Santa Claus and Mother/Whore. A fantastic film. Hopefully Criterion don’t overlook it.

[rufus2056]

Bad Company is not missing. It‘s called Les Mauvaises fréquentations in French and was later retitled to Du côté de Robinson.

[hearthesilence]

Le cochon is great (though for obvious reasons it may not be widely available overseas) so I'll definitely hold out for a Criterion release in hopes of its inclusion.

[furbicide]

The release of the Moreau set seems to have been pushed back to late February, for anyone (like me) who was wondering where their preorders were at!

[tenia]

That's weird as they've definitely were slated for December, I've received my review copy for a December release date, and there were plenty of sets around at my local Fnac !
Carlotta's webpage still states Dec 5th, and it looks available from Amazon or the Potemkine store as well.

[nicolas]

The release of the Moreau set seems to have been pushed back to late February, for anyone (like me) who was wondering where their preorders were at!

This is typical for Carlotta and their insanely bad / nonexistent customer service. They make exceptional releases but don’t bother with the rest. I’m thankfully not in the situation you’re in but I couldn’t resist the temptation to order their March package today as I really want the Ozu and Wenders set and a FiM-encoded Smooth Talk but wouldn’t order directly any more unless there are significant discounts. Hope you get this sorted out and receive your order.

[Peacock]

Unfortunately Smooth Talk is barebones aside from the trailer.

[furbicide]

That's weird as they've definitely were slated for December, I've received my review copy for a December release date, and there were plenty of sets around at my local Fnac !
Carlotta's webpage still states Dec 5th, and it looks available from Amazon or the Potemkine store as well.

To clarify, this is the English-subtitled Kino Lorber edition coming out in the US – as far as I know, the French edition did come out as scheduled in December (though I haven't seen any reviews or discussion of it online).

Thanks Nicolas! I have no reason to assume it won't come (and am used to lengthy shipping times anyhow, so can handle another four weeks). Just annoying that this has to happen at the same time as my Amazon order of the Criterion Akerman set has also been delayed!

[tenia]

Oh, my bad, I totally forgot they also were doing a US release.
I reviewed the French release : https://testsbluray.com/2023/12/13/test ... -cineaste/

[nicolas]

Oh, my bad, I totally forgot they also were doing a US release.
I reviewed the French release : https://testsbluray.com/2023/12/13/test ... -cineaste/

It’s a little concerning that the French set doesn’t include any sort of subtitles. I hoped for an Out 1 situation as Carlotta evidently has US rights. Hopefully this didn’t lead to them outsourcing the US encode to Kino. I’ll definitely wait with my purchase until we get a confirmation and / or caps from the US disc.

[fiendishthingy]

Here are more details on the Eustache set.