Subtitles:

English (SDH), none

 

 

The Film:

The film tells the story of a young woman named Maureen, played by Kristen Stewart with placidity and deep reserve, whose tedious, demoralizing job it is to buy designer clothing for a celebrity too well-known to buy it herself. By night, however, she is possessed of a more stimulating pastime. Maureen’s begun to cultivate a latent paranormal interest, and has found herself able to feel the presence of – and at times even communicate with – the dead.

This obliges the film to strike a divided style. On the one hand, it is a workplace drama about professional malaise. On the other, it is a supernatural thriller in which a budding medium communes with apparitions. The competing styles are unified, under the deft command of director Olivier Assayas, by the swell of feeling coursing beneath them: grief, sorrow, yearning. And of course love.

Excerpt from National Post located HERE

 

Personal Shopper opens on an eerie note as Maureen walks through an abandoned house to see if the spirit of her dead brother is present and to reassure a buyer that there are no unfriendly ghosts around. What she does find, however, is not reassuring to the prospective buyer. On the surface, the special effects surrounding her discovery of an angry spirit who spews ectoplasm is a throwback to Grade B genre movies (according to Assayas, the effect bears a striking resemblance to actual photographs taken by spiritualists in the nineteenth century), but the effect may give us the impression that the spirit world is a terrifying place. When asked what she is doing in Paris, Maureen says that she is “waiting.”

Excerpt fromTheCriticalCritics located HERE

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

Personal Shopper looks excellent on Blu-ray from Criterion and is advertised as a "2K digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Yorick Le Saux and approved by director Olivier Assayas".  This dual-layered Blu-ray, with max'ed out bitrate, reproduces the film's dark, smokey, appearance in 1080P resolution. The film is transferred in the 2.4:1 aspect ratio and visually it maintains the look of being as spooky as the scenes investigating the house. the image is, predictably super-clean and I can't see a way this could look better than it does in this format.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Criterion transfer the audio in a DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround track at a healthy 3052 kbps (24-bit). There are few effects - mostly maintaining the atmosphere through empty silence or a cornucopia of musical pieces like Ave Generosa, Pavana, many may recognize Marlene Dietrich performaing Das Hobellied, Amazing Blondel's The Leaving of the Country Lover and Anna Von Hausswolff's The Miraculous and Track of Time. It sounds flawless. There are optional English subtitles for the English, French and Swedish languages used on the film and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'A' -locked.

Extras :

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
Personal Shopper is both a divergence for Assayas and Criterion as a modern horror-genre film.  This was even better than I was anticipating - the subtleness of the darkness is far more haunting than overt, graphic, visuals thrust in your face. Personal Shopper has themes of mourning, overcoming fear, love, strength, personal spirituality, principles - all shrouded in a beautiful mystery.  This Blu-ray package is easily endorsed. This is one of the most emotionally engaging horror-related films I've ever seen. Our highest recommendation!

Gary Tooze

September 22nd, 2017