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(aka "Madame Rosa" or "Life Before Him" or "A Life Ahead")

 

Directed by Moshé Mizrahi
France 1977

 

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Madame Rosa (1977) is an enduring classic of cross-cultural understanding. Simone Signoret (Diabolique) stars as Madam Rosa, a French-Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who now runs a boarding house in Paris for the children of prostitutes. She takes a liking to Momo (Samy Ben Youb), an Algerian boy who she raises in the Muslim faith, a controversial decision in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But their bond transcends religion, and they scrape by as an unlikely but loving family. That is, until her health declines and the intolerance around them threatens to tear them apart.

***

Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.

Posters

Theatrical Release: November 2nd, 1977

Reviews                                                                                                       More Reviews                                                                                       DVD Reviews

 

Review: Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Box Cover

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Bonus Captures:
Distribution Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime 1:45:48.759         
Video

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 34,641,656,759 bytes

Feature: 32,426,471,424 bytes

Video Bitrate: 34.99 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

DTS-HD Master Audio French 1859 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1859 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Commentary:

Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps
Subtitles English, None
Features Release Information:
Studio: Kino

 

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 34,641,656,759 bytes

Feature: 32,426,471,424 bytes

Video Bitrate: 34.99 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Edition Details:

• Audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger


Blu-ray Release Date: May 18th, 2021
 Standard Blu-ray Case

Chapters 10

 

 

Comments:

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

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (May 2021): Kino have transferred Moshé Mizrahi's Madame Rosa to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "4K restoration". The 1080P image is very impressive. Colors are rich, detail strong and there is frequent depth. There is some consistent fine grain and the overall image looks brilliant in-motion.

NOTE: We have added 28 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Kino use a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel track (24-bit) in the original French language. It is another advancement in the film's audio and score credited to Dabket Loubna (only film credit) and Philippe Sarde (The Tenant, Max and the Junkman, Tess, La Grande Bouffe, Quest For Fire) and 'Signin' in the Rain' for the puppet show - sounding subtle and supportive. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-ray offers a new commentary by Kat Ellinger. She extols the importance of the restoration, how hard it is to see the Moshé Mizrahi's work hailing him as a humanist and woman's director. She talks about writer Romain Gary (who wrote the, hard to obtain, novel under penname 'Emile Ajar'), the performers and much more. It is excellent exposing in-depth details of the damaged but resilient characters and the production. There are trailers for three films, but none for Madame Rosa.  

Moshé Mizrahi's Madame Rosa is unsentimental, with pragmatic survivalist lower-class characters helping it strike strong chords of realism. An excellent film, with the great Simone Signoret, that I am so pleased to have seen via such an impressive 4K restoration and its resulting Kino Blu-ray image. If you have any interest in seeing this under-exposed director's work we strongly recommend this package with probing Ellinger commentary. Top-shelf stuff here. 

Gary Tooze

 

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Bonus Captures:
Distribution Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray


 


 

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