Blu-ray Review: The Fracture – Film Review

The divide

France: 2021
Original title : –
Directed by: Catherine Corsini
Screenplay: Catherine Corsini, Laurette Polmanss, Agnès Feuvre
Actors: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Marina Foïs, Pio Marmaï
Publisher: The Pact
Duration: 1h38
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Cinema release date: October 27, 2021
DVD/BR release date: March 16, 2022

The film

[4,5/5]

“At 65, Catherine Corsini is a well-established director in French cinema. The making of his first feature film, Pokerdates from 1987 and The divide is his 11th feature film. Although the director has embraced several different genres during her career, there is one theme that seems to be particularly close to her heart: relationships. After a first selection in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, with The repetition, Catherine Corsini again obtained this honor, 20 years later, for what is, for many, her best film, The divide. That this film returned empty-handed from Cannes will seem incomprehensible to the vast majority of spectators unless they are aware that it left with a very serious handicap: this film is very often very funny! Prohibitive on the Croisette, regardless of the members of the juries. (…)

Wishing to make a film on what is happening in French society today, a film focusing in particular on social fractures, Catherine Corsini could not find what, for her, could be the best way to address these topics. On December 1, 2018, a fall that brought her to the Emergency Department of Lariboisière Hospital gave her the answer, something obvious then: the Emergency Department of a hospital is the place, for example, allowing meet people from totally different, even antagonistic, social backgrounds. What is more, the hospital is a characteristic and often tragic example of the sad state in which most of the public services in our country find themselves, for lack of means. Where, other than in the emergency room of a hospital, was it possible to meet Raf, a comic book designer who was kindly sore, and Yann, a truck driver who had come from Nîmes to Paris as part of his job and who took advantage of it to participate in a demonstration of yellow vests during which he was injured by the police? Make them meet, make them discuss, make them insult each other, make them get closer, make them understand each other.

The hospital, a place of improbable encounters but also a place of appeasement: when a couple is in crisis and a member of this couple ends up in the hospital, the conditions are often met for them to settle down, at least temporarily, a truce in the conflict. This is how Julie, who at the beginning of the film we saw being showered with text messages filled with anything but friendly qualifiers from Raf, puts her resentment in her pocket and her handkerchief on top of it in order to take care of the one who, after all, is still his companion. As for the description of a completely overwhelmed Emergency Department, it is (unfortunately!) almost documentary, with the lack of beds and the lack of staff, but also the unfailing dedication of this staff, embodied here by the nurse Kim, able to chain 6 consecutive guards in order to replace those who, for budgetary reasons, are not there.

The divide could have been only a particularly instructive and intelligent film on the problems of the public hospital following the policy deliberately pursued for years by successive governments as well as on the social fracture which gave birth to the movement of yellow vests. Informative, also, on police violence. And touching when he approaches the field of human relations. All of this would already have been enough to make The divide a highly recommended film. But that’s not all : The divide is also a film with a particularly well-paced editing that offers viewers a very large number of irresistibly funny scenes, thanks in particular to an absolutely breathtaking Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. (…)

When we talk seriously about serious subjects such as the decay of the public hospital, the social fracture and police violence, it is not forbidden to lighten the subject by accompanying these words with beautiful slices of a perfectly assumed comedy. . This is the choice made by Catherine Corsini in The divide and it may have cost him the Palme d’Or. On the other hand, the spectators can only rejoice in finding in one and the same film intelligence, depth, emotion, high-flying performance of the actors and actresses and formidable humor. »

Excerpt from the review by our columnist Jean-Jacques Corrio. Find it all by clicking on this link!

The Blu-ray

[4/5]

Out of six César 2022 nominations, The divide finally got only a prize for best actress in a supporting role, awarded to Aissatou Diallo Sagna. Too bad, but rest assured, The pact did not, however, abandon Catherine Corsini’s film. The publisher even seems more than ever aware of the potential and the quality of its film, and has clearly gone all out with this Blu-ray from The divide, almost flawless in all respects: the definition is flawless, the sharpness of precision to die for, the vibrant colors (and the word is weak!), the excellent level of detail, and we won’t have anything to complain about either on the management of night scenes or in low light, which stands out as truly remarkable… A superb Blu-ray, certainly. On the sound side, the observation is the same: the spatialization is dynamic, enveloping and very effective. As per usual, The pact offers us a mix DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, and the latter will prove to be literally stunning, especially in the last third of the footage. In short, nothing to complain about in terms of image and sound; Like he usually does, The pact does the job, and does it well… Note also that the publisher has not forgotten moviegoers who watch their films at home without using a Home Cinema or sound bar: a mix DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 is also available, and will probably be more consistent if you view The divide on a “simple” television.

On the side of supplements, The pact invites us to find the trailer of the movie.