To Mathieu, Now In English!

It managed to slip under my radar for about a year, but last October, France Inter and Why Not Productions released a new DVD edition of To Mathieu (Selon Matthieu) - this time with English language options, and region free!

Check out my previous post on To Mathieu for a description of the film and its prior non-English releases.

As you can see from the picture, it only comes in a 2-disc set, paired with another film by co-writer and director Xavier Beavois, Le Petit Lieutenant. That's the same film Studio Canal paired this with in their 2006 set, but their discs didn't have English subs. Both discs are widescreen 1:85 and are essentially featureless, apart from the films themselves. But just having the film finally available in English is already a big score for Breillat fans! ...And yes, Le Petit Lieutenant has subs as well.

To Mathieu (2000)

2000's Selon Matthieu (To Mathieu) is Breillat's most recent film that she's written but did not direct, and it's also her most recent film that's still not on DVD in English (excluding Une vieille maîtresse, which we trust is coming).

Breillat cowrote the story with Cédric Anger and director Xavier Beauvois, in which Benoît Magimel plays Matthieu, a factory worker who works with his father in Normandy, until his father is fired for smoking on the job. While Matthieu fights to get his job back for him, his father dies in a car crash. But Matthieu thinks it was a suicide and decides to exact revenge on his boss by having an affair with his wife (Nathalie Baye).

Selon Matthieu is available on DVD, but not with English subtitles. There's a nice, French DVD (R2, PAL) with an anamorphic, widescreen print. This is also available in France as a 2-disc set with another of Beauvois' films, Le Petit lieutenant - the Selon Matthieu disc is the same as the one that's sold seperately. There's a healthy number of extras included in the set, but they're all for the Le Petit lieutenant, not Selon Matthieu.

Oh, and there's an anamorphic, widescreen Spanish DVD, as well. It's Region 2 and PAL encoded, with optional Spanish subtitles and a Spanish dub. But, yeah. Nothing for us English speakers.