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S E A R C H    D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Fill 'er Up with Super")

 

Directed by Alain Cavalier
France 1976

 

Klouk (Bernard Crombey) is a car salesman who has to miss a family holiday to deliver a luxury Chevrolet station wagon to his boss' wealthy client. He decides to take his friend Philippe (Xavier Saint-Macary) along with him for the ride across the length of France from Lille to the Cote d'Azur. On the way they give a lift to hitchhiker Charles (Etienne Chicot) who also brings along his friend Daniel (Patrick Bouchitey). A buddy road movie that came together from genuine friendship and developed throughout the months-long script workshop giving the film a casual and naturalistic quality that pre-dates Richard Linklater's similar approaches by some decade, Fill 'Er Up with Super is one of many touching road movie comedies about youth in a line of classics. A meditation on friendship and masculinity, it was voted one of the greatest of all French films by Time Out Paris which described it as a precious secret, one which could be likened to a documentary, yet in it's more surreal moments retains a freshness larger than life. 

***

Made in 1976, Alain Cavalier’s ‘Fill ‘er Up With Super’ is a well-kept secret among French cinephiles. A road movie set in the south of France, it chronicles – through a series of comic and touching vignettes – the burgeoning friendship among four men forced to share a station wagon. Even in its more surreal or cinematic moments, ‘Fill ‘er Up With Super’ feels incredibly fresh, authentic and uncensored; made like a shoestring documentary (with the director, camera and sound guys squeezed into the car’s backseat), it’s a heady, poignant artefact of ’70s filmmaking.

Excerpt from TimeOut located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: April 7th, 1976

Reviews                                                                                                       More Reviews                                                                                       DVD Reviews

 

Review: Radiance Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Box Cover

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Bonus Captures:

Distribution Radiance Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime 1:36:32.620         
Video

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 44,506,807,957 bytes

Feature: 30,002,003,328 bytes

Video Bitrate: 37.24 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Bitrate Blu-ray:

Audio

LPCM Audio French 2304 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit

Subtitles English, None
Features Release Information:
Studio:
Radiance Films

 

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 44,506,807,957 bytes

Feature: 30,002,003,328 bytes

Video Bitrate: 37.24 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Edition Details:

• Three interview short films with the cast directed by Cavalier: My Wife Lives in Fear, with Etienne Chicot (2011, 4:30), It's Full, with Bernard Crombey (2011, 6:09) and The King of Baby Bottles, with Patrick Bouchitey (2011, 8:33)
• Friends First and Foremost: An interview with Bernard Crombey - in this video interview the star discusses his work on the film, his collaborators and his career (2019, 27:38)
• An appreciation of Fill 'Er Up with Super by Cahiers du Cinema deputy editor Charlotte Garson (27:37)
Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing on the film


Blu-ray Release Date: March 6th, 2023

Transparent Blu-ray Case

Chapters 12

 

 

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Radiance Films Blu-ray (February 2023): Radiance Films have transferred Alain Cavalier's Fill 'er Up with Super to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "2K restoration of the film from the original negative". It is in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. The 1080P image quality is fairly flawless with stable, balanced, colors, some pleasing textures and is totally blemish free. It's a wonderfully clean authentic transfer (Gaumont sourced) with the modest interior light of low-budget filmmaking.

NOTE: We have added 32 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Radiance Films use a linear PCM dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original French language. Fill 'er Up with Super has no demonstrative aggressive sequences aside from verbal conflict, humiliation etc. The score is by Etienne Chicot (Charles in Fill 'er Up with Super) - more notable as an actor (120+ credits) in such films as À l'aventure, Transsiberian, The Da Vinci Code etc. The rare musical interludes are almost non-existent and subtle but supports the moods of the film (thinking of the men together on the train) and all dialogue is clear via the uncompressed transfer. Radiance Films offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Radiance Films Blu-ray offers three 'interview' short films with the cast directed by Cavalier - all made in 2011. My Wife Lives in Fear has Etienne Chicot in conversation, It's Full is with Bernard Crombey and The King of Baby Bottles, spends time with Patrick Bouchitey. A variety of topics are broached - philosophy, growing old etc. all in a casual, honest, fashion. There is an excellent, English-language, appreciation of Fill 'Er Up with Super by Cahiers du Cinema deputy editor Charlotte Garson for shy of 1/2 hour. She talks about Fill 'Er Up with Super's timeless qualities - its initial dark qualities, the melancholy humor she finds in it and the male bonding going on in the story. She talks about Alain Cavalier's career, the director's feelings on the superficiality of modern cinema film forms, the devastating impact of the death of his wife, former Miss France, Irène Tunc, and much more. Lastly, is a 2019 video interview with star Bernard Crombey discussing his work on Fill 'Er Up with Super, his collaborators and his career entitled Friends First and Foremost - running almost 30-minutes. Radiance Films Blu-ray package has a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters and a 28-page limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the film; A World Without Women by Murielle Joudet, The Cavaliers of the Apocalypse* by Evelyne Caron-Lowins and an extract from an interview with Alain Cavalier, photos and film credits.

Alain Cavalier's Fill 'er Up with Super is unconventional, groundbreaking French auteur cinema; free-spirited, under-produced, experimental - focusing on men sharing and confiding with each other about their lives, women, sex and lives with the casualness of amusing humor and a subtle distinction of the characters evolving throughout. There is no extraneous detail put on lighting, dubbing, sound effects, make-up etc. It is often paired with Cavalier's 1979 similarly less-constrained Martin et Léa also with Xavier Saint-Macary. This Blu-ray further announces Radiance Films as the 'real deal' in terms of unique, underexposed cinephilia (check out A Woman Kills and Big Time Gambling Boss.) Their growing niche will not want to miss this, 'well-kept secret', fascinating piece of independent 'guerilla filmmaking'-style cinema - another complete Blu-ray package from Radiance Films. Absolutely recommended!

Gary Tooze

 


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Box Cover

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Bonus Captures:

Distribution Radiance Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray


 


 

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