Quiet Days in Clichy — Quiet Days in Clichy( Blu Ray & Ultra HD)
From the early 1970s Quiet Days in Clichy is a wondering, and loosely plotted drama with perverse intent, which is edged with rough ‘n’ artiness, and moments of humour.
The film is a screen adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Henry Miller- the plot tells of two twenty-something American male friends who live in the Paris district of Clichy, and sleep with various women. When released the film caused a fair bit of controversy due to its sexual content, and language, been banned in several countries. Today it plays as a largely laid-back and playful drama, featuring moments of moving towards hardcore sex, and pretty constant use of the C word- it’s a film that flits back and forth between charming and artily shambling. Here from Blue Underground is a two-disc Blu-Ray & Ultra HD reissue of the film, featuring a new scan of the film, and a good enough selection of extras.
Quiet Days in Clichy( aka Stille dage i Clichy) was released in the summer of 1970- though it feels very much like from the decade before. The film was directed Holstebro, Denmark-born Jens Jørgen Thorsen. In total he had ten feature-length credits to his name- these largely seem to be a mix of arty/experimental filmmaking, comedy, and docs. Quiet Days in Clichy is captured in black and white stock, with an often grainy and playful doc-type look- with at points squiggled texts and arrows appearing on the screen.
The film centres around two writing buddies- Joey(Paul Valjean) whose balding and bespeckled, and shaggy-haired and moustached Carl (Wayne Rodda)- the Joey character is clearly meant to be Henry Miller himself. The pair live in a rundown apartment in the Clichy district of Pairs- and at points struggle to eat, but can always seem to summon up the energy to chase down their next sexual conquest.
The film opens with an eccentric and clearly stoned-on-something woman turning up at the pair's apartment- she does a speech about offering her body up to the two for a knockdown price, before stripping and writing all over their bathroom. Fairly soon first one man, then the next is having penetrative sex with her- this is fleeting, brief and crude. They pay the woman, and from here both Joey and Carl have one encounter after another- some of the women are after money, some our quirky/odd, and some are rather tragic.
One of the more controversial encounters in the film occurs when Carl picks up a girl, who claims she is seventeen but is clearly younger- then we get some rather inappropriate, at points very cringe-inducing drama/stabs at humour with the pair worrying they are either go to get arrested/ rough up by her parents. Thankfully we never see her nude, or involved in anything sexual- but it does rather add an unpleasant tone to the film- and rather tarring the largely entertaining enough pair.
Blended in with the pairs picking up and bedding women, we get the pair's general day-to-day life- with at points real struggles to buy food, with some bin driving going on. Also, we get some nice off-the-cuff footage of Paris, its people and buildings in the late 60s/ 70’s. The whole thing has a very wondering and episodic vibe, which I’d say comes across like a more sexualized take on Hunter S Thompson- and at points, there are some light chuckles to be had with the situations they find themselves in & the women they bed.
Sadly the film seems to have had an all-around critical battering over the years- with criticism of everything from the lack of plot, to the acting, and the film's flow. Which I think is more than a little unfair- sure in no way is it a lost masterpiece, but the film one hour and nearly forty minutes fly by eventfully enough, and both Valjean and Rodda are passable in their roles.
The film is scored very well with a mix of urgent American folk rock from Country Joe McDonald, and smoky-to-upbeat trad jazz from Ben Webster. And if I could criticize this release for one key thing, it would be the lack of CD- in the past Blue Underground has offered up soundtrack discs in their release. And this one was crying out for one, as the score is rather good.
On the whole, I’d say you’ll have to have a penchant for laid-back and lose 60’s/ 70’s drama, with a slight rough ‘n’ ready arty edge to get Quiet Days in Clichy. And for my part I did enjoy most of what it had to offer- the sexual content is really tame by today's standards, as is the language- I think the only real issues I had with the film was the attempts to add humour into the whole underage element of the film, and maybe some slightly unpleasant misogynistic touches here and there.
Moving onto this two-disc region free set- and we get a 4K scan of the film, this looks as good as a black & white- fairly cheapy shot/on-the cuff picture can. On the extras side, we get a few things- Songs of Clichy (11.31) which finds singer-songwriter Country Joe McDonald first playing the lead song from the film, before discussing how he got the job of writing songs for the film, and the creation of the songs. Next is Dirty Books, Dirty Movies (17.19) which is an onscreen interview with Henry Miller’s editor and publisher Barney Rosset- he talks about how he first met Miller, going on to publish his controversial book Tropic of Capricorn in the US, making of the film to hand, and how he went into film distribution. 'Midnight Blue' Interview with Barney Rosset( 25.04) which is an interview with Rosset on a late-night interview show. Otherwise, we get six minutes of deleted scenes from the film, and the following- theatrical trailer, poster & still gallery, book cover gallery, and court documents.
As we’ve come to expect from Blue Underground we get a well-presented new reissue of this 70’s counter-culture film, with some interesting extras and an as-good-as-we-can-expect scan of the film. One for either those who enjoy general counterculture 60’s/ 70’s films, Miller's work, or mixes of drama and unglamorous sleaze.