Balzac
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Movie Reviews of Balzac
Movie Review: Use Your Imagination!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I wanted to write a review after all of the bad ones I saw.
Yes, the dubbing over is poor, but have an imagination!!!
This is a fantastic movie, and the lines are written well,
unfortunately, dubbing is not usually done well. It's still
a great movie about Balzac, his life and relationships.
Movie Review: Balzac
Summary: 5 Stars
Read the book many years ago. The movie is as good as the book. I recommend to people who like to explore the biography of famous people.Movie Review: Review of "Balzac - A Passionate Life"
Summary: 3 Stars
An interesting telling of the life of a 19th century French author who is not all that well known outside literary circles. It is well acted with beautiful costumes and scenery. A major flaw in this Lionsgate presentation is the fact that the film is badly dubbed in English with no French soundtrack. It would have been far better in the original French with English subtitles (which are available as an option in this print). The original intent may have been a dual soundtrack. They really dropped the ball on this one.Movie Review: Depardieu's had better roles
Summary: 3 Stars
Perhaps had this movie not been dubbed in English and, instead, left in the original French, this movie (which looks more like a made-for-TV-movie than a theatrical release) would have seemed better. This mostly covers the period of Balzac's life right before he meets Countess Hanska (or Hanski) and the development of their relationship. If one judges Balzac solely based on this movie, one would think that he was never a popular writer or person.Movie Review: My dog could have dubbed this better.
Summary: 1 Stars
Amazon's product description reads: Language: English, French - which is false and misleading because there is no French to be found anywhere on this DVD.
Listening to the masterful delivery of Gerard Depardieu (one of the finest voices in in current cinema) being smothered by voiceovers less expert than a low budget kung-fu film was painful to experience. Amazon would be doing future misguided purchasers of this DVD a favor if they removed this dubbed version from the site.
However, if you're having trouble with the badly dubbed english your other option, the only one, is to enable the english subtitles and turn the sound off altogehter. What genius was up all night thinking of that one?
The distributors must have anticipated the limits of viewers' endurance but did not have the budget or energy left to give us the option of the original french audio version. Obviously it's stressful packaging foreign productions like this for american audiences and we trust the inclusion of subtitles didn't cause too much lack of sleep.
The main lesson learned is read reviews when purchasing foreign films. It is not beyond a distributors capacity to ruin fine productions such as this one.
If there must be dubbing for brilliant foreign actors I propose a new rule: only brilliant English actors can be used. I guarantee you Balzac did not sound like a bad actor flubbing a soap-opera audition.