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Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: February 21st, 2023.
Director: Alain Cavalier
Cast: Patrick Bouchitey, Etienne Chicot, Bernard Crombey
Year: 1976
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Fill’er Up With Super – Movie Review:
One of the last films that French filmmaker Alain Cavalier made before taking his career in a decidedly more experimental direction, 1976’s Fill’er Up With Super follows the exploits of a car salesman named Klouk (Bernard Crombey) whose tasked by his employer to deliver a brand new, top of the line Chevrolet station wagon that has just been sold at their dealership to the wealthy man who purchased it. This means that Klouk will have to miss his annual family holiday, but so that he isn’t travelling alone, he brings along his good friend Philippe (Xavier Saint-Macary) to keep him company.
Not too long after they embark on this road trip, which will take them from Lille to the Cote d'Azur, they come across two hitchhikers in the form of Charles (Etienne Chicot) and Daniel (Patrick Bouchitey) and decide to help them out and offer them a ride. Along the way, the get to know each other and along the way, we find out more about each one of these men and their respective personal lives, both the good and the bad.
A movie that was put together over a six month period when the four leads connected with director Alan Cavalier, Fill’er Up With Super is an atypical road movie but a very interesting and worthwhile one regardless. The movie has a naturalism to it that almost certainly stemmed from the fact that the four actors knew one another before production started, and Cavalier managers to do a great job of capturing this camaraderie through the camera. Nicely shot and set to a very effective score composed by Chicot, the production values here are quite good, with some really impressive cinematography doing a great job of capturing not only much of the humor and the drama that unfolds as these men start essentially exploring their problems with their friends, but also of some very nice scenery as it happens.
The performances are really strong across the board. Each of the four men in the lead roles does a very solid job of creating a unique character, ensuring that we never have any problems realizing who is who. Although some of the humor sometimes feels immature, even crass, and much of the dialogue early on is about their supposed sexual prowess, we buy them in these respective roles all while releasing that there’s a lot of exaggeration and even outright lying to one another as their characters develop. It’s interesting to watch these talented men ply their trade, as while the narrative is very loose (sometimes the movie feels almost like it doesn’t have a traditional plot) the movie still manages to hold our attention thanks to the quality of the acting.
Fill’er Up With Super – Blu-ray Review:
Fill’er Up With Super arrives on Blu-ray from Radiance Films in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition widescreen presentation framed in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.667.1 in what the packaging is touting as a new 2k restoration from the film’s original negative. Picture quality is very strong here. Detail is frequently quite impressive, though it does vary a bit from once scene to the next due to how the movie was shot, while colors always look perfectly natural. Black levels are nice and deep and skin tones appear lifelike and natural throughout. There are no issues to note with any obvious compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction, and this always look like a properly film-sourced presentation.
The audio chores are handled by a French language 24-bit LPCM 2.0 mix with optional subtitles provided in English only. No problems to note here, the audio quality is also very good. The levels are properly balanced and there are no problems with any hiss, distortion or sibilance to note. The subtitles are clean, clear and easy to read.
The main extra on the disc is Friends First And Foremost: An interview With Bernard Crombey which is a twenty-eight minutes interview with the actor recorded in 2019 where he speaks quite candidly about his work as an actor and producer. He talks about how he met Alain Cavalier and how they came to work together with the rest of the main cast, having to balance making this film with other events going on in his life, how making the film was an adventure, leaving the conservatory to do the project, moving on to doing writing work, how Cavalier was in a way starting over with this film, working on the story as a group, how his parents responded to the movie and quite a bit more.
My Wife Lives In Fear is a four minute piece with Etienne Chicot, Bernard Crombey and Patrick Bouchitey from 2011 directed by Cavalier that is an informal chat with the group where they look back on some of the people that they worked with and on aging as they enjoy food and drink together.
It’s A Full House is a six minute piece by Cavalier with Bernard Crombey, again from 2011, where we see the actor shave as he prepares for a live theater performance, sharing a fun memory about making Fill'er Up With Super as he goes.
The King Of The Bottle, a third piece from Cavalier from 2011, spends eight minutes with Patrick Bouchitey where he speaks about having to keep his kitchen in order as it is the soul of the house, having to feed a group of tiny cats with a bottle, finding his favorite cat dead after coming home from a trip and how he plays with stuffed animals when he's sad. It's pretty odd – the cats are really cute though!
Lastly, we get An appreciation of Fill ‘Er Up With Super by Cahiers du Cinema deputy editor Charlotte Garson, a twenty-eight minute piece made by Radiance in 2022 specifically for this release. She speaks about the film's free-spirited tone and how it is both of its time and timeless at the same time. She then goes on to explain how the film's dark beginning makes it interesting, given that it is a comedy even if it comes from a melancholy place. She also talks about the themes that the movie explores, the film's experimental nature, how the movie approaches the relationships between the characters in the movie, details on Alain Cavalier's career and how aspects from his personal life affected his work, how he met and came to work with the four young lead actors in the movie, details on the careers of the four leads and how they wanted to be more than actors and how Cavalier's directing style really complements the story and the performances.
Radiance Films has also done a very nice job with the physical packaging for this release. The disc comes packaged with some reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters with an English poster art option on the main panel and a French poster art option on the reverse. Inside the clear keepcase along with the disc is a full-color, limited edition insert booklet that contains writing on the film by critic and author Murielle Joudet in an essay titled ‘A World Without Women’, a newly translated contemporary article on the film from the June 1976 issue of Positif by Evelyne Caron-Lowins titled ‘The Cavaliers Of The Apocalypse’ and an extract of an interview with Cavalier from 2011 originally conducted at FilmInt about how making this feature led to his digital work. Credits for the disc and technical information on the transfer is also included in the back, and this release also comes packaged with a very cool obi strip that you can remove if you prefer to display your physical media without technical information and synopsis text on it - it’s a small thing, but it’s a nice touch.
Fill’er Up With Super - The Final Word:
Fill’er Up With Super s an interesting film, in many ways a comedic road movie and in others simply a look at the ups and downs of friendship, directed and acted with an impressive sense of naturalism and warmth. The Blu-ray release from Radiance Films gives this unlikely candidate for a special edition just that, with a beautiful presentation for the feature and a nice selection of extra features that explore the creation of the film and the lives of those who made it.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Fill’er Up With Super Blu-ray screen caps!
