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Released by: Fun City Editions
Released on: March 29th, 2022.
Director: David Hamilton
Cast: Patti D'Arbanville, Mona Kristensen, Bernard Giraudeau, Gilles Kohler
Year: 1977
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Bilitis – Movie Review:
The feature film directorial debut of controversial art photographer David Hamilton, 1977’s Bilitis starts Patti D’Arbanville as the titular character, a teenaged girl who attends a girls school in the picturesque French countryside. During this period, Bilitis ‘comes of age’ and, as such, is intrigued by the prospect of getting out into the world and experiencing all that it has to offer.
When summer comes, she stays with family friends Pierre (Gilles Kohler) and Melissa (Mona Kristensen), a married couple whose relationship has seen better days. It isn’t long before Bilitis picks up on their problems and starts to fall for lovely Melissa. As she wrestles with these feelings and genuinely wants to help Melissa have a better lot in life, she meets a photographer named Lucas (Bernard Giraudeau).
Based a poem by Pierre Louÿs and co-written by none other than Catharine Breillat, Bilitis also benefits from a great score composed by Francis Lai. Beautifully shot by Bernard Daillencourt (who worked with Walerian Borowczyk earlier on The Beast and Immortal Tales and who would work with Hamilton again two years later on 1979's Laura, les ombres de l'été), the film makes use of a lot of soft focus and diffused cinematography techniques to create a dream-like atmosphere in quite a few of its scenes (common with French erotica of this period). The visuals are impressive, which is important to the film as there isn’t a whole lot to the actual plot. The film holds our interest thanks to its series of sexual set pieces, some kinkier than others, but it plays out more as a series of vignettes documenting Bilitis’ willingness to experiment with her sexuality than anything else, although it does have an interesting sort of minor twist at the end that helps to set it apart from other French erotic films of the era, Just Jaeckin’s trendsetting Emmanuelle, from 1974, being the most obvious example. As Bilitis becomes more comfortable with her sexuality her character does evolve, but the bulk of the film seems to exist to show off Patti D’Arbanville and Mona Kristensen (who was married to Hamilton at the time the movie was made).
The production values are strong and the performances just as good. Patti D’Arbanville is very convincing in the lead role, she looks right for the part and we have no trouble at all buying her as the titular character. She has an interesting chemistry with Mona Kristensen that makes their scenes together stand out, and she makes for an interesting contrast to Bernard Giraudeau’s Lucas.
Bilitis – Blu-ray Review:
Fun City Editions brings Bilitis to region free Blu-ray taken from a ‘4K restoration from its 35mm original camera negative’ on a 50GB disc with the feature taking up just under 21.7GBs of space and framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. While the image was definitely shot soft in spots, the transfer shows really nice detail and is rich with grain and texture. Colors are reproduced nicely and the film’s palette comes across very naturally. Black levels are strong throughout and skin tones look lifelike and accurate. There are no issues at all with any noise reduction or edge enhancement and the picture is free of noticeable compression artifacts. It looks really good, just keep in mind that the softness is intentional.
24-bit French and English language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono tracks are provided on the disc along with optional English subtitles. Both tracks sound quite good, offering properly balanced and clear dialogue as well a nice, rich soundtrack. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion to note, it all sounds just fine. As this was recorded without live sound, both tracks are basically dubs and while the French track may suit the tone of the movie better somehow, the English, more often than not, tends to match the lip movements of most of the cast members more than the French option does.
The main extra on the disc is a newly recorded audio commentary by film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson that is quite interesting. There’s a lot of talk here about the themes that the film explores but they also go pretty deep into the different cast and crew members involved in the production including Catherine Breillat and with an emphasis on David Hamilton’s life and career as well as the sexual assault allegations that were made public a few months before he passed away in 2016. It’s an interesting conversation that does a good job of wading through some of the more controversial aspects of the man’s work.
The disc also includes a video interview with camera operator Noël Very that runs for nineteen minutes and goes into detail about how his work with Walerian Borowczyk helped land him the job on this film, what went into creating the soft look of the film by way of different diffusion techniques, and what was involved in creating a consistent look for the production.
The disc also comes bundled with a full color insert booklet with a new essay by Samm Deighan titled ‘Paradise Lost: The Agony Of Sexual Awakening In Bilitis’ as well as cast and crew credits. A reversible cover sleeve is also provided.
Bilitis – The Final Word:
Bilitis is languid and dreamy for most of its running time, light on plot to be sure but able to overcome that with some really strong visuals, great production values and some pretty solid acting from the leads. Fun City Editions’ Blu-ray offers up the film in a beautiful presentation and some with some interesting extras that document its history without shying away from some of its more controversial aspects. All in all, this is nice package for a well-made film.