Le Grand Bleu (Luc Besson)

[Pro-bassoonist]

Gaumont are set to release Luc Besson's Le Grand Bleu a.k.a The Big Blue (1988) on November 26th (French territories only).

Variety:

Luc Besson, the French wonder boy who moved into the commercial major leagues with his $3 million Gaumont picture Subway, joins the international spendthrifts club with The Big Blue, a waterlogged yarn about a couple of rival championship divers. Produced on a disproportionately large scale ($12 million budget, a 9-month shoot on international locations from Greece to Peru), this English-language adventure is indigently plotted and lacking in genuine dramatic and human interest.

Besson was in part inspired by the life and exploits of French champion free diver Jacques Mayol, who served as technical adviser on the film and allowed his name to be retained for the protagonist, played by Jean-Marc Barr.

Barr is a renowned experimental diver based on the French Riviera. During an assignment at a frozen lake high in the Peruvian mountains, he runs into Rosanna Arquette, a flightly New York insurance agent who immediately falls in love with him and trails him to Taormina where he is facing off life-long competitive friend Jean Reno in a diving contest.

Apart from Arquette's increasingly giddy pursuit of the somewhat absent Barr (more concerned with dolphins he befriends than humans who love him), nothing much happens until a climactic runoff in which latter tries to beat his friend's world free-diving depth.

Besson fatally misjudges the cinematic interest of his theme. The underwater sequences, as splendidly lensed as they are, have little intrinsic suspense and quickly become repetitious. The land scenes are boring because Besson has been unable to give his characters any psychological density.

[In the US, pic was released in a 119-min. version with a new score by Bill Conti; in the UK, the original score was retained. In 1989, a 166-min. Version Longue was released in Paris.]

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1988. Running time: 136 MIN.

Pro-B

[Arkadin]

hopefully it will be region free as "Chrysalis" was.
The Gaumont releases have been very good so far imo.
I have 2 of them so far.
Not sure how many they have released.

[leonardodm]

Sweet ! Awesome movie !

[fishlogan]

just saw on this french site devedenaute.fr
said audio will be in


Français: dTS5.1
Anglais: dTS5.1
Français: dTSHDMA5.1
so at least we get the english track. shame its not in dtshdma

[kannisto]

DVDFR says it has French audio track only, DTS-HD MA 5.1, and both English & French subs.

http://www.dvdfr.com/dvd/f150891_le_..._speciale.html

It's marked as region ABC there. Seems like it's a special edition with 3 BD discs in total. Sounds good, but might be a bit more expensive than regular releases then.

[fishlogan]

plusdedvd.fr
this site has it listed with english as well

if it has an english track ill purchase for sure but it wil be expensive.
i cant see a local (australia) release for this ever happening so it may be the only way to get it

[kannisto]

Gaumont's own site has an entry for this now as well.

http://www.gaumont.com/DVD/fiche_dvd.cfm?id_dvd=305

No English audio listed there, but English subs are listed.

[Arkadin]

yeah looks like the "coffret" is for the sd version.
The bd is the regular price of 29.99 Euros.
Gaumont appears to be one of the most US friendly French studio so far.
At least most of their titles include English subs.
It appears that only 3 titles do NOT have English subs so that's not bad at all.
great to see that some studio over there kind of "gets it"
I just perused all of their bds.
Does anyone know if they are all region free?
They still use that misleading "zone 2" crap.
Like I said I have 2 of their releases already, but want more.

[Pro-bassoonist]

It would be very disappointing if what Gaumont have listed is true. French is not the original language spoken in Le Grand Bleu.

Pro-B

[Arkadin]

does seem odd.
at least we won't get the bastardized US redo that is so lame.
wonder if it will be the original theatrical or Director's cut.

[Pro-bassoonist]

Theatrical and Director's will be included.

Pro-B

[kannisto]

There is a review at DVDRAMA:
http://www.dvdrama.com/rw_fiche-10598-.php

From that it seems that there really is no English audio on the release if I understood correctly, and the language menu pic also implies that.

[LFletcher]

Originally Posted by kannisto

There is a review at DVDRAMA:
http://www.dvdrama.com/rw_fiche-10598-.php

From that it seems that there really is no English audio on the release if I understood correctly, and the language menu pic also implies that.

Are you sure? If you look at the picture under the Critique Son section it indicates sous-titres Anglais.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by LFletcher

Are you sure? If you look at the picture under the Critique Son section it indicates sous-titres Anglais.

Yes, English subs are there but there was discussion earlier on this thread about English audio inclusion and it seems there's no English audio there. English would be the original language the movie was made in so it seems the release is missing the original language audio.

The last comment of the review also says (translated with Google):

Note that the movie was filmed in English and that we will be unable to rediscover the film in its original version (overcharges?)

[Arkadin]

so it's English subs of a French dub?
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
Gaumont what have you done?