1088 La piscine

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

1088 La piscine

#1 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Apr 15, 2021 12:07 pm

La piscine

Image

The bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this languorously alluring exercise in slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Ten years after their breakup, one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose blissed-out summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin)—unleashing a gathering tidal wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, La piscine dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces.

SPECIAL FEATURES
  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • The Swimming Pool: “First Love Never Dies,” the English-language version of the film
  • Fifty Years Later, a 2019 documentary by Agnès Vincent-Deray featuring actors Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil
  • New interview with scholar Nick Rees-Roberts on the film’s cinematic and aesthetic legacy
  • Archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin, actors Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet, and director Jacques Deray
  • Alternate ending
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translation
    PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang

User avatar
jazzo
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2013 12:02 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#2 Post by jazzo » Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:38 pm

This looks like a pretty terrific edition, and that's coming form someone who owns the region-free blu-ray out of France from a few years ago.

In a perfect world, I would have loved to have seen this bundled with Guadagnino's remake, A BIGGER SPLASH (which might just be my favourite movie from the last decade), and the "inspired-by" Ozon picture, SWIMMING POOL.

Rupert Pupkin
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:34 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#3 Post by Rupert Pupkin » Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:19 pm

I wonder if the X4 transfer have already been released somewhere ? it looks like the typical Eclair - color grading (greenish-yellowish) (If the scene HD (also available as a MOV file bigger) from Criterion web site is accurate).
I tended to prefer the old release on Blu-Ray (was it released by StudioCanal or M6 ?- It was a French Blu-Ray which I bought years ago).

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#4 Post by Ribs » Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:32 pm

It was actually released on UHD in France.

Rupert Pupkin
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:34 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#5 Post by Rupert Pupkin » Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:38 pm

Ribs wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:32 pm
It was actually released on UHD in France.
oh, I see- no combo Blu-Ray vs UHD. Is there a test for this French Blu-Ray ? I would like to see the capture in order to check if the upcoming Criterion transfer will be sourced from the same x4 restoration and color grading.

I had bought this old French Blu-Ray released by M6 (a X2 restoration)

https://caps-a-holic.com/c_list.php?c=4221

I can't see some caps of the new French UHD.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#6 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:20 am

DVD Classik reviewed the BD and UHD. I reviewed the BD for Retro-HD at the times too (but the site is down so the review is unavailable as of now). It doesn't have the Eclair nor Ritrovata look since it's been restored and graded by Hiventy seemingly without using these labs' LUTs.

_shadow_
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:48 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#7 Post by _shadow_ » Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:20 am

That cover doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. Did she just knee him in the groin?

Rupert Pupkin
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:34 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#8 Post by Rupert Pupkin » Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:53 am

tenia wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:20 am
DVD Classik reviewed the BD and UHD. I reviewed the BD for Retro-HD at the times too (but the site is down so the review is unavailable as of now). It doesn't have the Eclair nor Ritrovata look since it's been restored and graded by Hiventy seemingly without using these labs' LUTs.
good news! thank you! I hope that Retro-HD will be back on line soon and I'll check the caps at dvdclassik.

User avatar
Number Forty-Eight
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2021 2:01 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#9 Post by Number Forty-Eight » Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:14 am

Yes the UHD looks great. The Criterion will probably also include the same transfer as the french for the english language version.

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: 1088 La piscine

#10 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:28 am

How good is this film?

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#11 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:46 am

It's been a while since I've seen it- my memory is that it's solid but not great, enjoyable enough to own.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#12 Post by domino harvey » Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:51 pm

It's okay. Better than the endless remake, at any rate. I still have the UK Blu-ray and that's good enough for me (though I should have sold it when it was going for beaucoup bux)

User avatar
Fred Holywell
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:45 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#13 Post by Fred Holywell » Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:08 pm

Good to very good, but not great. One of those films you might hope/expect to be better than it actually is. Maybe it would have been with a different director, like Chabrol. Though it's probably the best thing Jacques Deray ever did.

User avatar
jazzo
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2013 12:02 am

1088 La piscine

#14 Post by jazzo » Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:58 pm

domino harvey wrote:It's okay. Better than the endless remake, at any rate. I still have the UK Blu-ray and that's good enough for me (though I should have sold it when it was going for beaucoup bux)
As a lover of A BIGGER SPLASH, Domino, I felt that one down in the short ‘n’ curlies.

User avatar
Number Forty-Eight
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2021 2:01 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#15 Post by Number Forty-Eight » Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:10 am

It's quite dark despite being set in a sunny villa with a swimming pool. It features major actors arguably at their peak.

The 4K scan finally does this film justice (the old 2008 restoration was the pits with overexposed whites blown out).

Of great interest is the english version, which has different takes where the actors speak english, and is edited sightly differently.

black&huge
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 5:35 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#16 Post by black&huge » Wed Jun 02, 2021 5:28 pm

I gave this a watch this afternoon. Quite beautiful and did not expect what makes up the second half though I do have something funny to bring up and a question (major spoilers of course):
SpoilerShow
This is the second movie I've seen where Alain Delon kills Maurice Ronet. I thought this was a little humorous since Purple Noon was the other and similarly they're both set in beautiful locales. Were Delon and Ronet good friends at the time? Did they also more or less choose to star in a couple films where one kills the other and are there anymore films where Delon kills Ronet?


User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: 1088 La piscine

#18 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:32 pm


Peter McM
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 7:11 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#19 Post by Peter McM » Fri Jul 02, 2021 7:24 am

Wow--Beaver and bluray.com have very differing views on image quality, don't they? FWIW--I tend to trust Beaver more; looking forward to this as a blind buy.

User avatar
mhofmann
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:01 pm

Re: 1088 La piscine

#20 Post by mhofmann » Fri Jul 02, 2021 5:37 pm

Judging from the Blu-ray.com screencaps, the encoding on this Criterion disc looks really, really crap -- even worse than their usual very mediocre standard.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#21 Post by tenia » Fri Jul 02, 2021 5:41 pm

Yes, it's so awful even Svet felt compelled dedicating a huge chunk of the PQ part of the review to it, which speaks volume.
Still, it's only just a bit more mediocre than many other Criterion encodes for which he never mentioned them, so it's funny to suddenly see him going full throttle on this one.

As for Beaver, Gary's review is as useless as usual. He didn't detect this issue, his caps are unreliable and his review too short to discuss deeply enough any single element of the presentation.



User avatar
cdnchris
Site Admin
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:45 pm
Location: Washington
Contact:

Re: 1088 La piscine

#22 Post by cdnchris » Tue Jul 20, 2021 9:41 pm

It appears Svet's annoyed with the colours more than anything, which is fair, though (rather oddly since this usually pisses me off as well) I didn't find them that bad here. To defend him a bit on going all out on the encode (since he rarely does), this one is noticeably more noisy in motion compared to some of Criterion's other recent releases. I find that on a television screen their presentations still come off looking decent enough (banding is what has been sticking out for me the last while), but for whatever reason, this time around, the grain comes off especially noisy in the shadows and in darker sequences throughout the film. So whether the encode is the same or worse from what they usually do, the issue is more front-and-center. I think he's exaggerating a bit, maybe because he's especially annoyed by the colours and feels the need to really trash things, but it obviously stuck out more for him this time around.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#23 Post by tenia » Wed Jul 21, 2021 1:26 am

His recent review of Cartouche, graded by Ritrovata in a quite obvious fashion, also unfairly gives a 2 out of 5 PQ score, spends 90% of it on the colors and barely discusses any other aspect of the presentations.
It's just what he does nowadays, using his reviews to rant also about this. It probably helps that it fits his "America First" rhetoric and allows him to thrash "European" ways of working.

It's a shame since the readers are the biggest losers from getting reviews so un-thorough, but it's nothing new for Svet's reviews not to be reader-oriented.

The encode on this one does look awful (most likely because Hiventy's work yields here a very fine grain field the encode just don't know how to deal with at all), but the colors, while debatable, are nowhere close to something Eclair or Ritrovata. No matter how pissed he might be about those or willing to turn his reviews into vengeful crusades, they still need to thoroughly assess PQ, have a consistent scoring scale and allow to navigate even within the various levels of problematically graded releases. This doesn't. La piscine certainly isn't such an intense offender, Cartouche isn't either (though it's worse than La piscine), and in the meantime, worse offenders used to get 4 out of 5 on PQ from him. This is undecipherable for a reader who doesn't have a global picture of what is happening (with the gradings AND with Svet).


britcom68

Re: 1088 La piscine

#24 Post by britcom68 » Mon Aug 16, 2021 1:14 pm

So after finishing the special feature-interviews and finally watching both the English-language and non-English language version of this film, I felt the need to post to see what others felt about the issues this film has.

Firstly, I do feel the film is as others have said before here that this is good and re-watchable but perhaps not Earth-shattering in of itself. I can understand how this film may have an aesthetic legacy, but then again, if this repairing of Romy Schneider -Alain Delon-Maurice Ronet had not taken place, then such laudatory remarks about the legacy of this film’s Riviera sun-drenched style would go rather to their earlier outing in Plein Solei where such remarks are deserved instead.

Before I watched the interviews for Criterion’s supplements, I was already wanting to read up more as I felt unfulfilled by my first viewing of La Piscine. I had not seen La Piscine before watching Ozon’s own “Swimming Pool,” the aforementioned “Plein Solei” or even been able to watch La Piscine right after watching those films for the first time many years ago. I am struck that Ozon did improve in some ways, but in only very specific ways on Derary’s film, but they are so subtle as almost not worth mentioning.

The only single aspect of La Piscine that I wish the supplements had discussed and to which I am trying to look up online (but my French is rusty so translating articles myself is not advisable) is whether or not the unpublished novella to which La Piscine had been based on had clarified if Delon’s character already previously encountered “Penelope” before her existence was made known to him as the daughter of Ronnet’s character. In both the English and non-English language film versions, Delon’s character is shown to be inside the house when Jane Birkin arrives with Ronnet’s character outside and that is the first time Penelope’s name is first spoken onscreen (and spoken too softly by Ronnet to boot, so that Delon’s character could not possibly have heard him from where he was inside the house). At no time does “Marianne” or Ronet’s character onscreen tell Delon’s character the name of Ronet’s daughter but Delon knows it and states it when first introduced to her. If it is an unintended error of continuity, well, these things do happen. But such a complication would be a more welcomed motivation for the murder of Ronet’s character (sleeping with the daughter of one’s friend once is bad enough but more than once is almost reason enough to get into a fatal argument). I prefer to live in hope that this was done subtly as to introduce just a possibility that perhaps Delon’s character and Birkin’s character already had met somewhere or even hooked up previously. Of course speculation like this will irritate many, but it is interesting to consider the possible interpretation since this film lives in an atmosphere carefully crafted by Jean-Claude Carriere to be as dialog minimal as possible. Rather like Janet Leigh’s character in Frankenheimer’s “Manchurian Candidate,” there is an enjoyable awkwardness between the female characters and their perspective partners in La Piscine, and this reaction heavy-handedness can help in some scenes, but also grate in others.

As for the sexual politicking of this aspect of the film, it is a bit like in Mart Crowley’s “Boys in the Band” (both the stage production and the original film adaptation) in the casualness which two specific characters had hooked up with each other before the plot even begins, but presented as hooking up only for the sex and that such actions are already a part of their identity and did not change or impact their characters in any discernable way but still could have been blown out of proportion by their new partners had the partners chosen to do so. In La Piscine, the improvement on that scenario is the prior relationship between Romy and Ronet is neve defined clearly enough to judge if it was only a sexual relationship and, for that matter, how their relationship ended is given almost no discussion. The reaction Romy has to learning that Ronnet’s character even had a daughter and did not tell her during their own time together is echoed by Ozon’s film perhaps more realistically. However, it is the curious reaction by Romy to first learning about the daughter’s existence in La Piscine that helps prepare the viewer to focus on the abundance of reaction shots in place of clarifying dialog (both useful and irritating depending on which moments in La Piscine one wants to give weight to).
Had Delon’s character previously met or even hooked-up with Birkin’s character, this would explain the sharp gestures and glances that they have right upon arrival at the villa and in the yellow chairs after where Delon asks Penelope her age. It also bothered me also that Birkin’s character, upon arrival at the villa,, looks away from “Marianne” and glances around the villa and then stares at Delon when he enters frame. “Penelope” is presented as having a stable home with her biological mother and is upset about Ronet’s very psyche and actions towards her and is fully aware of Ronet and Romy’s characters’ past relationship and Birkin is even shown reading some sort of paperback murder-mystery, so one would imagine her character would more realistically want to scrutinize “Marianne” closely upon arrival to prove or disprove any hypothesis rather than glance and walk away immediately upon their first introductions.

The final other curious moment of La Piscine which is given no discussion in the film itself or in the supplements starts at 31.28 (in the non-English language version) where Delon is shown on the white couch watching TV from a small portable white set while wearing a mostly white shirt and black pants. We do not even see his clothing at first as he is framed cropped from the neck down by the TV itself. This to me is an allusion to a similar moment in The Graduate, when Dustin Hoffman is similarly framed during the “Sound of Silence/April Come She Will” montage. Since none of the interviews in Criterion’s supplements discussed this coincidental moment, I will choose for myself whether it was intended or not, but since this particular framing in La Piscine comes right up after Delon’s character speaking to Ronet but his unfulfilling career as they sit in an Italian sports car, I will choose to consider it a sly play by Deray to intentionally echo The Graduate. (I hope no one tries to question the allusion since it would be nice to think that Deray was trying to ape not only Hitchcock in this film but rather other filmmakers too).

The biggest difference between the editing of the English and non-English language would seem to me not the actual ending but starting at 24.26 in the non-English version (the morning after the arrival of Ronet and Birkin). I found it odd that in the supplements they talk about the biggest difference being the ending for the US audiences (the cut is labeled as the Spanish ending on the supplements) but while the final scene can actually play with or without any added tension of the police arrival in their van, the tension leading up to the actual death itself is not only more crucial to show but more interesting. In the non-English version, a curious little scene where Ronet woofs down coffee and toast and then appropriates the breakfast tray from Delon before Delon’s character even eats anything to eat, and then states he is going to wake up Marianne creates a tension that can play as both weirdly almost comedic (the character of Harry is presented as a jokester) but also gives palpable tension in the air for Delon’s character. After all, even though Romy and Delon’s characters are not married or even engaged, they are shown to be in love with each other and who would allow or want to sit idly by and watch the lover’s ex-boyfriend go wake up their nude girlfriend in her own bed and bring breakfast and coffee in the process? Again, a very subtle use of curious actions by Ronet’s character without any dialog to clarify why he feels he can do this, but with a generous close-up showing Delon’s reaction which makes the viewer fully cognizant he is not pleased by the turn of events. Why the English-language cut that feels more to do with pacing rather than censorship since by 1971 the US was using the ratings system rather than overt codes to enforce cuts, but it is another example of building the tension from reactions that is much more needed than actually showing the police van arriving in the final moments. And if you want a slow-build approach to two characters circling each other over a crime while in a stylish venue, Norman Jewison’s “Thomas Crowne Affair” still sets a bar of this particular era in time post-Hitchcock’s prime.

All in all, for me La Piscine feels all the better for not taking the Hitchcock approach to having a score underlying the actions, but the intended dialog-minimalizations (as stated by Carriere in the documentary) at times leaves almost too much to the imagination and ultimately the payoff is not delivered. Then again, Ozon’s own film has a similar issue in that we are not entirely sure ultimately how much of the personal and dialog of Charles Dance’s publisher-character is real or imagined by Rampling’s character which calls into question the very titular character and those around it. A more rewarding ending for Ozon’s feature would have been along the lines of “Three Days of Condor” where the viewer is let in to know all has been written down and turned in but left helpless wondering if it will be published or not. In Ozon’s ending the viewer knows “Sarah Morton” has had her work published but is instead left frustratedly wondering what exactly was and was not written into her book as (now) published.
Deray’s first major foray into making a more mystery-based film does have moments to enjoy, but ultimately the balance of not knowing more about the characters left me feeling that any psycho-sexual analysis of this film will get you no further than trying to approach this film just as a murder-film and view it within that light. La Piscine may be a film that just barely comes together and will work just fine – provided you have not already seen “Purple Noon,” Ozon’s “Swimming Pool, “ The Graduate, or even the following-in-Graduate’s footsteps Frank Perry’s “The Swimmer.” If you want a Riviera-set “whodunit” that also has some sarcasm there is always “The Last of Shelia” but La Piscine fails as a who-did-it as well as fails a procedural study of the aftermath/investigation or look at why the death occurred.

User avatar
Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am

Re: 1088 La piscine

#25 Post by Never Cursed » Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:44 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:51 pm
It's okay. Better than the endless remake, at any rate
Guadaigno to harvey: Drop dead

Post Reply