La piscine (1969) Vacation on the Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection releases La piscine to Blu-ray on July 20, 2021. Jacques Deray directed the film starring Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, and Maurice Ronet.
‘La piscine’ Movie Synopsis
The bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this alluring work of slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Formerly one of European cinema’s most iconic real-life couples, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider reunited for this film, bringing a palpable erotic chemistry to their performances as the bronzed and beautiful vacationers whose summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur is interrupted by the arrival of an old acquaintance (Maurice Ronet) and his eighteen-year-old daughter (Jane Birkin)—unleashing a gathering wave of sexual tension, jealousy, and sudden violence. A paragon of 1960s modernist cool thanks to effortlessly chic clothes and a loungy Michel Legrand score, La piscine dives deep to reveal sinister undercurrents roiling beneath its seductive surfaces.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- The Swimming Pool: “First Love Never Dies,” the English-language version of the film
- Fifty Years Later, a 2019 documentary by Agnès Vincent-Deray featuring actors Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and novelist Jean-Emmanuel Conil
- New interview with scholar Nick Rees-Roberts on the film’s cinematic and aesthetic legacy
- Archival footage featuring Delon, Birkin, actors Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet, and director Jacques Deray
- Alternate ending
- Trailers
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Jessica Kiang
New cover design by Michael Boland
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Avco Embassy Pictures released La piscine on January 31, 1969. Jacques Deray directed the film starring Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, and Maurice Ronet.