BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (2021) – Blu-ray Review

Juliette Binoche Carries Emmanuel Carrére’s Return to Feature Filmmaking

DIRECTED BY EMMANUEL CARRÈRE/FRENCH/2021

BLU-RAY STREET DATE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2023/COHEN MEDIA GROUP (Via Kino Lorber)

In the short video below, David Blakeslee of the Criterion Connections podcast shares his observations on Cohen Media Group’s Blu-ray release of Emmanuel Carrére’s Between Two Worlds (Ouistreham). The French 2021 film stars Juliette Binoche as real-life author Marianne Winckler whose embedded research on the plight of low-income workers creates conflict and brings revelation.

The product description… Famed author Marianne Winckler (Juliette Binoche) goes undercover to investigate the exploitation of the working class in Northern France. She eventually lands a job as a cleaner on the cross-channel ferry and develops close connections with the other cleaning women, many of whom have extremely limited resources and income opportunities. As she learns more about the plight of these workers, Marianne struggles with her deception toward them and tries to rationalize that it’s for the greater good. A longtime passion project for star and Academy Award® winning actress Juliette Binoche, Between Two Worlds is adapted from Florence Aubenas’s bestselling non-fiction work Le Quai de Ouistreham (The Night Cleaner) and marks Emmanuel Carrère’s return to directing for the first time since The Moustache in 2008. Carrère has achieved world renown and acclaim as an author and has been described by The New Yorker as “France’s best-known writer of literary nonfiction.”