Review of On Connait La Chanson

Introduction

A French musical comedy about relationships. That should strike fear into many hearts, it certainly did in mine. Those 4 words shouldn`t really go together, but somebody made them and On Connaît La Chanson is the result.

I don`t like musicals, so the likelihood of me liking a French musical is quite small. This one tells the story of some house-hunting people in Paris and their own tangled web of relationships. With some songs thrown in for "good" measure.

Video

A distinctly below average 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. Lots of grain, dirt and dust are often visible and things look very washed out and soft. This is a pretty rubbish transfer on the whole, and just typical of the lack of care that seems to get shown for these more obscure titles on DVD.

And we get a print with burnt-in subtitles, which is unforgivable given that prints exist

Audio

An average DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, but at least it`s better than the video transfer. Everything is audible at least, so if you enjoy the songs you can hear them nicely. Some of the songs used:-

Charles Aznavour - `Et moi dans mon coin`
Jacques Dutronc - `J`aime les filles`
Maurice Chevalier - `Dans la vie faut pas s`en faire`
Edith Piaf - `J`m`en fous pas mal`
Jane Birkin - `Quoi`
Serge Gainsbourg - `Je suis venu te dire que je m`en vais`

Features

Nothing.

Conclusion

I`m definitely the wrong person to review this DVD. Musical comedies are not my thing, and whilst this isn`t a full-blown musical really, it still feels like one. Characters breaking out into song just annoy me. If musical-type films are your thing then you might enjoy this film, but not this DVD as it seems to be a rather shoddy and lacklustre effort.

A poor video transfer, average audio transfer and no extras make this another rip off UK DVD. If you want to seek out the film, hunt down the French release which contains better audio and video transfers, as well as optional subtitles.