Sunday, June 28, 2015

Director Maxime Giroux's Félix and Meira Arrives On DVD From Oscilloscope Laboratories On Sept. 29


DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey
In what could be an early frontrunner in the Oscar derby for Best Foreign Language Film this year is French Canadian filmmaker Maxime Giroux’s beautiful love story, Félix and Meira.  

Oscilloscope Laboratories announced this past week that Félix and Meira will be available on DVD this coming Sept. 29.

With the byzantine rule of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences one has to wonder if the film’s extensive festival release activity in 2014 (with multiple wins, including the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival) somehow disqualifies it for 2015 contention.  

The film did open theatrically in mid-April of this year, so that makes it a 2015 theatrical release … and it is in French and Yiddish.   Even if it is from our neighbor to the north it sure looks like a foreign language film with a theatrical release … sounds like a contender.

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph TribbeyIn any case, ticket sales have been exceptionally good at $435,628 and that mid-April rollout for Félix and Meira generates an ARR of 165 days.

Meira (played by Israeli actress Hadas Yaron — Fill the Void) is a 20-something Hasidic Jew, married and living in Montreal.   Her life is bound by orthodox rules that prevent her from doing little more than being a faithful wife to her husband, Shulem (Luzer Twersky — Where Is Joel Baum?, Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish) and a dutiful mother to their young daughter.

Félix is a French Canadian in his early 40s and he is having something of a crisis in his life.   His father has recently passed and there was no closure.   

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey
He is without faith and she lives within doctrine of faith that spells out everything form a to z … they are from completely opposite worlds.   They don’t even speak the same language and have to use their limited English skills to bridge the gap between French and Yiddish.

But a chance meeting brings these two opposites together.   It’s a slow process and filmmaker Maxime Giroux (who co-wrote the script with Alexandre Laferrière) does a marvelous job in getting the audience to feel for Félix and Meira; to root for them.   It is a love story that seems so wrong, but somehow their growing affection for each other makes it feel so very right.

Félix and Meira is presented in French and Yiddish, with two separate subtitle options — one in English, the other in French.


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