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La Vie de Jésus



One of the great debut films of recent times, Bruno Dumont’s La vie de Jésus [The Life of Jesus] presents life’s brutality and exhilaration played out by turns within the quarters of a tiny Flemish country town. Here, positioned in relative isolation from the rest of so-called cultural Europe, the connections between individuals will take on a physical power inflected by boredom, by desperation, and by urges as raw as the earth.

Freddy and Marie (played by David Douche and Marjorie Cottreel in astonishing performances) are two teenagers with their futures uncertain and their present undefined. They ride motorbikes, they have sex — communication like any other sort. But in their hometown of Bailleul in Flanders, where news from the world-at-large disappears just as quickly as it drifts in, death proves to be inescapable, and decidedly permanent. As the film’s powerful climax unfolds, the viewer will come away with his or her own interpretation of how the life of Christ has figured into the story of Freddy and Marie — a contemplation on the magnitude of mercy.

With its frank, honest depictions of the body in the course of the sexual act, La vie de Jésus announced the emergence of a powerful philosophical intelligence — and a master of dramatic control — onto the scene of world cinema. Winner of the prestigious BFI Sutherland Trophy, Camera d’Or at Cannes, the Prix Jean Vigo, European Discovery of the Year at the European Film Awards, amongst many others, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Bruno Dumont’s feature debut for the first time on home video in the UK in a director-approved edition.

Special Features

- New anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer in the original aspect ratio
- New and improved optional English subtitles
- Original French trailer
- Full-colour 40-page booklet including a lengthy interview with Dumont on the making of the film, and Dumont's work-notes created during production, in new English translations.

Love the cover - not what I would've expected for this film, but somehow it works... I look forward to chucking out the god-awful Fox Lorber disc.

According to the Eureka site it gets a July release!

Up for pre-order at Amazon UK

No specs yet, retail is 19.99.

I had a press release for this in the post today. It's out on 21 July and we can expect:

Anamorphic transfer (OAR 2.35:1)
New and improved English subtitles
Original French trailer
Full-colour 40-page booklet including a lengthy interview with Dumont on the making of the film, and Dumont's work-notes created during production, in new English translations

Interesting film. It had an uncertificated British release at the ICA in 1998 and hasn't been on video or DVD before now. I saw it on Film Four, complete with unsimulated penetration shot.

Page is now up.

Amazon UK has the title up for 11.98 now, making it the cheapest place to buy the title for US buyers.

GaryC wrote:It had an uncertificated British release at the ICA in 1998 and hasn't been on video or DVD before now. I saw it on Film Four, complete with unsimulated penetration shot.

BBFC guidelines have changed markedly since then, so there shouldn't be a problem with an uncut 18 now.

beev. Looks pretty bletchy, almost like a progressively encoded version of the pox lorber.

HerrSchreck wrote:beev. Looks pretty bletchy, almost like a progressively encoded version of the pox lorber.

Exactly! *sigh*... I'm completely baffled reading these reviews while looking at the screengrabs on beev.

Hashi wrote:Exactly! *sigh*... I'm completely baffled reading these reviews while looking at the screengrabs on beev.

Well, this DVD Times comment:

The film is given a fine progressive transfer and is presented anamorphically at its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The tone appears to be a little on the bright side, giving the colour a slightly pastel quality and rendering skin-tones slightly pinkish. Whether this is intended or not, it certainly marks out the contrast and texture between the delicacy of the skin tones of the performers and essential earthier tones of the environment in which they are placed. Clarity is good, allowing for strong definition in these tones, and there are very few marks of any kind – only a few stray white dustspot flecks. Sharpness is perfect, not overemphasised or boosted, but natural, allowing fine detail to be detected. Even though on a single-layer disc, there are no issues with compression artefacts, the image remaining stable throughout. This is as good as you could hope for on Standard Definition DVD.

...seems to me to be extremely accurate, and also very conscientious in covering every base (for instance, mentioning the slightly pastelly look to the colours).

Then again, I've seen the actual DVD.

If this is as good as a color film can look in sd-- and the proof is in the seeing it in motion-- then this must be the single greatest difference between motion and caps in history and the whole process of screencap comparison should be thrown in the wastebasket as a functional means to assess image quality between releases. Anyone who can look at the analoguey outlines, and for example the jackets on the kids riding the mopeds in the last cap, and say that this is not exhibiting video phenomenon that is a departure from 35mm color, needs to-- I think-- look closer.

Such hyperbole, Schreck!

This isn't the first time that Beaver grabs have made one of our colour releases look different to how it actually is -- but it's not the turd you're ranting about. Sometimes Beaver's MoC grabs look amazing (BELLISSIMA), sometimes they don't do the disc justice, and I'm not sure why.

Looking right now at the finished DVD on the same screen as the Beaver grabs, and the colours are even more subtly muted on the finished MoC DVD.

The MoC grabs on Beaver have been downscaled from their native pixel size of 1024x576 (actual scope size 1024x435) to 800x348, and the Fox Lorber is arguably unrepresentative also because it should have big black borders top and bottom to show it's non-anamorphic. If they were both displayed at their native pixel size, and the MoC grabs were to look like they do when I grab them, I think it would be a truer comparison.

With regard to our new MoC release, we rejected the initial pan and scan (!) BetaSP master, and an anamorphic digibeta was located in Paris, supplied by 3B Productions (the original production company), approved by Bruno Dumont, and then accepted by us for release. We have no problems with how this looks at all. It was a dream release for me personally and has taken a while to set-up -- so it's disappointing to see it crapped on undeservedly. It is anamorphic OAR, progressive, and a fine encode of the available materials. Here are some native pixel grabs of the finished MoC disc:

Well, I think the disc looks amazing either way and it is certainly the best option possible. Can't wait!

Some pictures may be worth MORE than 1000 words. ;~}

How is it that those caps look a million times better than the DVDBeaver ones? Gary's pics seriously convinced me not to bother with the disc but these tell me to buy buy buy

I really dunno -- we had similar problems with NOSFERATU, and some other titles. Beaver's grabs were just not representative of the MoC discs, and the discs Beaver receives are always finished discs. There's something quite wrong somewhere.

It's not very good for niche releases like this when folk are "seriously convinced not to bother" by the quality of the grabbing... and Beaver has a much larger readership than this forum.

I'll see if Gary can host my grabs...

Nick,
I did the grabs for Nosferatu - where Pepsi did them for La vie de Jesus.
We both used the same procedure that we've been doing for years.
I don't have the DVD yet, but think Pepsi's grabs make it look okay - for a single-layered disc. Miles ahead of the F/L. I mean - it's not a Blu-ray or anything.
Anyway, I added your caps at the bottom of the comparison.
Best,
Gary
P.S. "How is it that those caps look a million times better" - glad we are not prone to exageration.
P.P.S. Nick's grabs are at 1% jpg compression (99%) - ours are at our consistent 10% (90%).

And to think, you almost made it an entire post without belittling someone's criticism of your website.

What can I say?
Sorry to use your own words to 'belittle you' Domino. Perhaps you should choose them with a little more thought next time.
Per-Olaf went to a lot of trouble obtaining and matching those captures - I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you minimizing their value with your exagerations. I know I don't.

Hey Nick, I can't apologize based on the way the caps looked on the beev-- yet your caps look smooth, filmic, and utterly unlike the caps posted by Gary's comrade. The variance between the (apparently) "real" look of the image transfer as captured by you above, vs the reproduction of said in the beaver caps are, frankly, breathtaking. What formerly looked like Kino-flop, now looks like a CC quality transfer.

I don't see it as hyperbole at all-- when variances are this huge, then I think a statement like

the whole process of screencap comparison should be thrown in the wastebasket as a functional means to assess image quality between releases.

holds true with just a tad exaggeration, maybe. You just-- literally-- saved a load of disc sales with your caps, I daresay.

Gary Tooze wrote:Per-Olaf went to a lot of trouble obtaining and matching those captures - I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you minimizing their value with your exagerations. I know I don't.

I'm sure if Per-Olaf has a problem with someone on a message board expressing their opinion, he can join and make posts as equally embarrassing as yours. I'm not sure how you can take a criticism personally, as all you guys do is take screencaps of DVDs and post them online. "How dare someone suggest this DVD we didn't release is better than we said it was!"

I'm very happy to confirm that Nick's caps look much closer to what I saw than Gary's - and I now have a final release version of the DVD.