Time to Play: Films by Jacques Rozier
Adieu Philippine
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Synopsis
One of the most original, self-assured, yet undersung voices of the French New Wave, Jacques Rozier crafted across a career spanning five decades a cinema attuned to the beauty and heartbreak of chance encounters, improvised days and spontaneous play. This box set presents the UK Blu-ray premiere of his five feature films and several of his short films across five discs.
In Adieu Philippine (1962), two girls and a young man spend an idyllic few days in Corsica, his upcoming military service in Algeria looming on the horizon. Also abandoning Paris for the seaside, three girlfriends enjoy a languorous late summer break in Near Orouët (1971). A promised Robinson Crusoe experience in the Caribbean turns into something much more chaotic in The Castaways of Turtle Island (1976). Maine-Ocean Express (1986) follows strangers on a wild adventure across the language barrier. In the backstage comedy Fifi Martingale (2001), a superstitious theatre director makes catastrophic changes to a successful play.
Picture 9/10
Found exclusively in their latest box set (for the time being), Time to Play: Films by Jacques Rozier, Radiance presents Rozier’s Adieu Philippine on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation is sourced from a 2K restoration created from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. The disc is locked to Region B, so North American viewers will require a Region B coded player.
Unsurprisingly, the high-definition presentation looks excellent. The restoration work has cleaned the image up spectacularly and, outside of a few very minor blemishes, there is really nothing worth noting. The scan has also managed to capture an exceptional amount of detail, including the film’s very fine grain structure, which is then beautifully rendered through a superb encode. This leads to exceptional detail levels throughout, at least where the original photography and source elements allow.
The black-and-white film's grayscale is equally strong, delivering deep blacks, at least for the most part (a handful of nighttime scenes can appear slightly murky), along with excellent highlights. Whites never look blown out, retaining all details within, while the gradations in between remain smooth. Ultimately, everything comes together to create a wonderfully photographic presentation.
Time to Play: Films by Jacques Rozier - Screen Captures
Audio 6/10
The film comes with a lossless, single-channel monaural PCM soundtrack, which, overall, sounds fine, with dialogue coming through clearly with adequate fidelity and range. Music also sounds okay, though it can become slightly distorted at the higher end, which may simply be due to where the music has been sourced. In general, it sounds about what I would expect and presents the film without any major issues.
Extras 4/10
Part of a larger set featuring four additional Rozier films, each receiving its own disc and selection of supplements, Adieu Philippine only receives one film-specific feature beyond its theatrical trailer (which concludes with roughly five minutes of footage featuring François Truffaut interviewing the young cast on a beach) and that's the 2024 interview featuring actor Yveline Céry, running 11 minutes. In it, she explains how she first came to meet Rozier (a story she also briefly recounts during the trailer interview with Truffaut) before discussing the production, her favorite scenes, and her happiness at seeing the film finally receive its due after spending decades overshadowed by Breathless and the broader French New Wave.
Radiance also includes Rozier’s 24-minute short film Blue Jeans, which follows two teenagers on their Vespas as they cruise around Cannes in pursuit of women. The pair are admittedly not especially likeable, with one of them even clipping a woman with his scooter while pursuing her. Yet that appears to be the point, with the narration gradually revealing their frustrations before arriving at an acceptance of the disappointment and futility behind their efforts. Well acted and quickly paced, I found it an enjoyable little short despite the characters' off-putting behavior.
It's a fairly slight selection specific to the film itself, though it represents only a small part of the substantial collection of material spread across the entire set.
Closing
With a wonderful high-definition presentation and a modest but worthwhile selection of supplements, it serves as an excellent introduction to the set.
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