‘Falcon Lake’ Blu-Ray Review – Charlotte Le Bon Crafts A Mysterious, Powerful Coming-Of-Age Drama

A love and ghost story: a shy teenager on vacation experiences the joy and pain of first love when he forges a bond with an older girl.

For in-depth thoughts on Falcon Lake, please see my colleague Mike Vaughn’s review from its original theatrical release here. 

Video Quality

Falcon Lake makes its Blu-Ray debut with a lovely 1080p video presentation in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio that showcases the nostalgic 16mm cinematography well. The rustic production design and lakeside shooting locations provide clear textural details. Black levels avoid most signs of banding outside a few moments, as largely they maintain their depth. The flesh tones are natural with a magnificent amount of detail present in close-ups. The image is clean with the nuanced, natural color palette emanating off the screen. The film employs some deep colors when the expanses of nature are featured, which makes for a very sumptuous image. The presentation shows off an impressive amount of depth, especially when you are looking across the vastness of the lake. Overall this Blu-Ray is a favorable representation of this movie that should more than please fans. 

Audio Quality

Yellow Veil Pictures gives this Blu-Ray a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that captures all of the nuances of this soundscape. The nimble and effective mix sounds wonderful here as it both captures the dimension of the space and creates a bit of discomfort when necessary. Environmental sounds of nature engage the surround speakers in a very impressive way. When the characters are moving through the woods, there are some distinct ambient details that flesh out the setting. 

Dialogue always comes through clearly without being clipped by any competing elements. The score and soundtrack is effective and well-balanced while maintaining its fidelity. This is a very gentle movie, but a few moments deliver some nice texture to the proceedings. The audio track provides a really rich experience full of nuances that bring this narrative to life exactly how it was intended. This film is presented in the original mixture of French and English with optional English subtitles. 

Special Features

• Behind The Scenes Look with Director Charlotte Le Bon: An 11-minute conversation with director Charlotte Le Bon that is structured in a really unique way in which she reflects back on the production while watching footage projected on a wall prior to the final assembly of the movie. In this piece she discusses her reasons for wanting this story to be her directorial debut, finding the right performers, working with her cinematographer, challenges she faced while shooting, what she has learned from the film and more. 

• Story Board to Scenes Featurette: Four scenes totaling nearly eight minutes are provided here via split screen to show a rough early sketch of how the scene was envisioned juxtaposed to what the final version looks like. 

• Trailers: This disc provides the Theatrical Trailer (1:34) and the International Trailer (1:32). 

• Booklet: A multi-page booklet featuring the essay “Ghosts Just Come With The Territory: First Love & Loss In Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake” from writer Jessica Kiang is provided here. This piece gives a well-rounded analysis of the themes and plot developments of the film which strengthens your comprehension overall.  

Final Thoughts

Falcon Lake is a truly staggering directorial debut from Charlotte Le Bon, especially if you are not expecting it to be a horror movie in the slightest. This coming-of-age drama captures the volatile emotions that accompany adolescence and the magic of connection. The movie is quite dreamy and a bit mysterious, but it always keeps itself narratively grounded and honest. The performances from the young performers are impressive in their naturalism. You quite easily get completely invested in this emotional journey. Yellow Veil Pictures and Vinegar Syndrome have released a Blu-Ray featuring a top notch A/V presentation and a decent assortment of special features. Charlotte Le Bon has proven herself to be a director who will have us lining up for her next project. Highly Recommended 

Falcon Lake is currently available to purchase on Standard Edition Blu-Ray or with a Limited Edition Slipcover exclusively through Vinegar Syndrome. 

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Yellow Veil Pictures and Vinegar Syndrome have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.