Press Release Criterion Press Release: La Piscine (1969) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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The bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this languorously alluring exercise in slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Ten years after their breakup, one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose blissed-out summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin)—unleashing a gathering tidal wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, La piscine dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces.

FILM INFO​

• Jacques Deray
• France
• 1969
• 122 minutes
• Color
• 1.66:1
• French
• Spine #1088

SPECIAL FEATURES​

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• The Swimming Pool: “First Love Never Dies,” the English-language version of the film
• Fifty Years Later, a 2019 documentary by Agnès Vincent-Deray featuring actors Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil
• New interview with scholar Nick Rees-Roberts on the film’s cinematic and aesthetic legacy
• Archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin, actors Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet, and director Jacques Deray
• Alternate ending
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang
  
  New cover design by Michael Boland

PURCHASE OPTIONS​

Coming soon, available Jul 20, 2021
BLU-RAY1 Disc$31.96SRP: $39.95
DVD2 Discs$23.96SRP: $29.95

 

[Ronald Epstein]

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[JPCinema]

A BIGGER SPLASH with Ray Fiennes was the 2016 'remake".