I picked up my DHL package - my early birthday present to myself. I really took a chance on this - it's a new DVD set from France - the complete works of Jacques Demy, including all his short films - tons of extras, and so many films I've never seen, especially some of his last films, which never had US releases. The chance was that on amazon France or the other French sites I checked there was no information about English subtitles and my greatest fear was that except for Umbrellas and Young Girls (for which I figured they'd use the same transfers as before and therefore have subs), that these could all be in French with no English subs. Well, I'm happy to report that this was one chance that worked out - everything in the set has English subtitles. I checked the transfers of Umbrellas and Young Girls - they're the same source material but look a little more solid. I then put in Une Chambre En Ville - this is the first time it's ever been released anywhere on video - it looks and sounds great, and I'll be watching it later this afternoon. But I'm so excited to see his short films and Lady Oscar and Traffic and his film with Yves Montand and Mathilda May (which I only saw once on the old Z Channel), and so many others, most especially his English-language film, The Model Shop, shot here in LA and also never before available. The box is gorgeous and each DVD is housed in a slimline case. The set is very expensive but given the number of films included (14, plus the shorts) and the extras (not sure if they'll be subtitled or not, but there are a lot of them), it's actually quite reasonable. It's 100 euros, which is about $150 US. I shall be in Jacques Demy heaven for at least a week, and let me tell you that is heaven indeed.
