461 Bonjour Tristesse

[MichaelB]

BONJOUR TRISTESSE
(Otto Preminger, 1958, 94 mins)
Release date: 18 August 2025
Limited Edition Blu-ray (UK premiere)

Pre-order here

Otto Preminger (Bunny Lake Is Missing) directs Bonjour Tristesse, a stylish adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s novel, starring Deborah Kerr (The Chalk Garden), David Niven (Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife), and Jean Seberg (Lilith).

Holidaying on the French Riviera, widower and playboy Raymond (Niven) begins to develop a relationship with staid Anne (Kerr). His manipulative daughter Cécile (Seberg), fearing her behaviour will be curtailed, conspires to come between them, with tragic results...

Shot on location by Georges Périnal (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) in an innovative mixture of colour and black-and-white photography, Bonjour Tristesse was a favourite film of nouvelle vague filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, with the latter casting Seberg in his debut feature, Breathless.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• 4K restoration
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with critics and writers Glenn Kenny and Farran Smith Nehme (2025)
• Geoff Andrew on ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ (2025): the writer and critic delves into the making of the film and discusses its cast and crew
• A Charming Little Monster (2016): Denis Westhoff, Françoise Sagan's son, discusses his mother's best-selling novel and its adaptation for the screen
• Original theatrical trailer
• Isolated music & effects track
• Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with new essay by Peter Cowie, a piece on Françoise Sagan’s source novel and its transition to the big screen, a selection of archival materials on the film’s production, and overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies for the UK
• All features subject to change

#PHILE461B
BBFC cert: PG
REGION B
EAN: 5060697924060

[What A Disgrace]

It's been so long since Indicator's Twilight Time days, I had almost given up hope on this one getting a new release.

[ChunkyLover]

Yeah, I figured this one would of been released years ago. Regardless, it is nice to get a more widespread release now.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

You're welcome everyone; I quite literally purchased the Carlotta disc from a fellow forum member only a few weeks ago, thus ensuring that this would be released. (Of course, the miserably bad remake is probably more to thank even if its existence is a net negative in the world.)

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

[domino harvey]

DVDBeaver

[hearthesilence]

FWIW, in case anyone is wondering, all previous Blu-rays also displayed the same textbook case of anamorphic mumps - it's just how the film looks.

[MichaelB]

Yup - if the camera's moving, as is often the case here, it's very hard to miss.

[Drucker]

This film really knocked me out. I found the first 30 minutes engrossing in the way the film immediately drops you into the world. Seberg's performance is enchanting from the jump, and a dreamlike atmosphere feels sustained, before we quite understand the direction the film will go in or the relationship of the characters to one another. I found the visuals delicious throughout, and I enjoyed once the plot really kicked in a great deal, too. I didn't even foresee just how tragic the ending would end up being. I've known about this film since the first Twilight Time release and haven't seen it until now, but it completely surpassed any expectations I had.

[Never Cursed]

Well said. I first saw this for the Preminger list project, and knew a third of the way in that whatever I submitted would have this in the top slot. Was there ever a better or more cruel tourist picture outside of the ones Hitchcock made? Even he wasn't so willing as Preminger to make the Riviera into a gaudy balm for broken people, as outlined in Kerr's show-stopping monologue about parties towards the end. Unless it was the consequence of resentment carried over from Saint Joan, it's completely inexplicable to me that Seberg's performance was given such short shrift by Anglophone critics - she embodies perfectly the underdeveloped social awareness of adolescence and the tragic capacity of the young to abuse those qualities to unintentionally trap themselves in perpetual immaturity. Peter Cowie's somewhat uncomfortable and distanced essay in the Indicator booklet informs the reader that Sagan herself seemed to be acting this part - "cultivating an attitude...pretending to be jaded" in spite of her youth. If this account is true, Seberg was doing a note-perfect imitation. (I wonder if anyone has tried to string together the film work of Arthur Laurents, Arthur Laurents, who provided the above impression of Sagan. His best written material - this, West Side Story, and Rope - are all tragedies about the hubris of immature adolescents.)

FWIW, in case anyone is wondering, all previous Blu-rays also displayed the same textbook case of anamorphic mumps - it's just how the film looks.

A small price to pay for wonderful shots like the one towards the beginning, when the camera begins in an upstairs bedroom and swings out and along the villa's balcony with Niven and Seberg.

[hearthesilence]

FWIW, in case anyone is wondering, all previous Blu-rays also displayed the same textbook case of anamorphic mumps - it's just how the film looks.

A small price to pay for wonderful shots like the one towards the beginning, when the camera begins in an upstairs bedroom and swings out and along the villa's balcony with Niven and Seberg.

Oh of course, the cinematography (the camera movements combined with the blocking and compositions) is amazing. If I could create my own personal DCP, would I transform the frame to "correct" for the mumps? Without hesitation. But it's still an inherent characteristic of shooting with those lenses in that era, so from a historical perspective, I grudgingly concede that doing so for general release would be dubious.