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

ADDITION: Radiance Blu-ray (November 2026): Radiance have transferred Marie-Claude Treilhou's Simone Barbès or Virtue to Blu-ray. Shot at night in the summer of 1979 by Jean-Yves Escoffier, Simone Barbès has a look that is low-budget by necessity and expressive by design. The theater lobby is staged largely in long, patient takes from fixed positions, so the comings and goings of the customers play out like a stage farce with Simone and Martine as the constant center. The nightclub trades that compositional rigor for warmth and clutter: colored light, close bodies, and faces emerging from the dark. The closing car journey is the most intimate and the most lyrical section, with the city sliding past the windows as the night winds down. Simone Barbès or Virtue comes to Blu-ray from Radiance on a dual-layered disc with a max’ed out bitrate, and the 1080P image is drawn from a 4K scan and restoration by Cosmodigital. It is framed in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio. This is a modest-looking film, and the transfer doesn’t pretend otherwise. The low-budget nighttime production shows in a heavy, sometimes coarse grain structure and in detail that is more pleasing than razor-sharp. Close-ups of Bourgoin and Simonet fare best, with decent facial texture. Wider shots of the lobby, lit by its fixtures, can look soft and muddy in the darker corners. The color is the main event. The theater’s ochre and mustard walls give the first third a warm, slightly sickly glow, and the yellow neon eye sculpture pops nicely. The dusk exteriors of the rue de la Gaîté go appropriately blue with vivid magenta and yellow signage. The nightclub section is bathed in saturated reds that hold together without obvious blooming or blocking. Black levels are adequate rather than deep. Contrast is in keeping with the source, and the image is clean, with no damage of note. This looks like an honest representation of how the film was shot, with the restoration preserving its grainy, nocturnal texture. It is not a demo disc, but it is very likely the best the film has ever looked on home video.

NOTE: We have added 34 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Radiance use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original French language. The film is dialogue-driven, and the uncompressed track serves it well. The chatter in the lobby, the muffled sounds leaking from the auditorium, and the overlapping conversations of the nightclub are all clear and consistent, with no hiss or dropouts. Roland Vincent’s sparse score and the club’s live music, including the accordion-and-drums duo on stage, come through with a pleasing, slightly raw presence. There is a nostalgic quality that suits the material. Radiance offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

Supplements on the Radiance Blu-ray include Marie-Claude Treilhou’s 1981 short film Lourdes l’hiver, which runs about 9 minutes. It was shot by Simone Barbès cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier and won the Prix Jean Vigo, and it makes a nice companion piece showing the same wry, observational eye at work in a compact form. Next is The Virtues of Simone Barbès, a new visual essay by film critic Lillian Crawford running 1/4 hour. Crawford looks at the power dynamics running through the film, between customers and workers, men and women, and reality and fiction, and at the film’s affection for eccentricity. Film scholar Elena Gorfinkel (Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s) follows with a new 24-minute interview that expands on what she sees as the film’s quietly radical aesthetic. It’s an articulate, well-researched discussion that helps put Treilhou’s debut in the context of Diagonale and French cinema of the period. There is also a 5-minute archival French TV interview with star Ingrid Bourgoin from February 1980, presented in SD. Bourgoin holds her own opposite a fairly condescending Philippe Bouvard, a fun period artifact that shows how far the culture had to go. The limited edition of 3,000 copies includes a 36-page booklet. It opens with cast and crew listings, followed by Erika Balsom’s (The Edges of Cinema: Essays on Twenty-First Century Film Culture) new essay Night Moves (2026). The booklet also includes two pieces from the time of the film’s release: a 1980 interview with Marie-Claude Treilhou conducted by Mireille Amiel, and Danièle Dubroux’s Dream Workers (1980). It closes with transfer notes and credits. The archival material is a welcome inclusion, giving a sense of how Treilhou talked about her debut and how it was received in its day. The package is rounded out by a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with a removable OBI strip.

Marie-Claude Treilhou's Simone Barbès or Virtue is admittedly an acquired taste - a slight, talky, three-part nocturne in which very little "happens" but a great deal is observed. Its pleasures are in the deadpan authority of its usherettes holding court over a porn theater lobby full of shy regulars and freeloaders, the eccentric, half-mad warmth of the lesbian nightclub, and the wistful, almost courtly final drive through the emptying Montparnasse streets. Treilhou never condescends to her marginal characters nor sentimentalizes them, and the film's blend of irony and tenderness, along with its queer, offbeat sensibility, make it a genuine discovery from Paul Vecchiali's Diagonale stable. Ingrid Bourgoin, who actually worked as an usherette, anchors it with unforced conviction, and the supporting cast includes Martine Simonet (The Last Metro,) Sonia Saviange (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom,) and co-writer Michel Delahaye (Mr. Klein, Out 1: Spectre, Last Tango in Paris, A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, Blanche, The Shiver of the Vampires, Donkey Skin, The Nude Vampire, Alphaville, Band of Outsiders, Ro.Go.Pa.G.,) as the gentle stranger. Jean-Yves Escoffier's (Rounders, Good Will Hunting, Gummo, The Lovers on the Bridge, Bad Blood, Boy Meets Girl,) grainy, color-drenched night photography gives it a heady atmosphere, with sparing music by Roland Vincent (Once More, The Strangler.) The Radiance Blu-ray offers a modest but authentic-looking 4K-restored image with a max'ed out bitrate, uncompressed 24-bit mono audio and a thoughtful package of extras - Treilhou's prize-winning short Lourdes l'hiver, Lillian Crawford's visual essay, Elena Gorfinkel's interview, the archival Bourgoin TV appearance and a 36-page informative booklet. Not for everyone, but for those attuned to its wavelength, this is a small treasure of the post-New Wave, and Radiance's edition is the definitive way to see it. Recommended to the right crowd.

Gary Tooze