I love French films, so don't assume I disliked this movie because of this. I disliked it because the characters in the film (particularly the one played by the lead, Michel Piccoli) have absolutely no depth to their characters and the story itself has a very, very, very thin and unengaging plot. The bottom line is that I never cared about the guy nor his seemingly pointless quest. Some of this is because he often seemed like a selfish jerk. Perhaps this pointlessness of the character is what the film makers were trying to get at....but I just didn't care.
When the film begins, you find the middle-aged Piccoli is a balding musician whose life consists of one sexual conquest after another. Apparenlty these younger women really go for musicians! Anyway, while on the way to meet an old flame (and his next sexual conquest), he catches a very brief glimpse and then apparently has fallen for this mysterious woman in blue. Talk about a ridiculous plot...and from this point very early in the film until the end, Piccoli (and later he is assisted by a strange ex-lover who he often emotionally abuses for no particular reason) wander aimlessly all over Paris looking for a woman he only saw for a second or two. Now assuming this woman NEVER changes clothes, the chances of finding her in a city this size are very small...and the audience is expected to care about this for some odd reason. It's particularly hard because you don't know the character he plays at all--so why should you care?! I know I sure didn't.
So I had to ask myself why I even bothered to keep watching this dull but occasionally stylistic film. I think it's because I read that Simone Simon was in the film and I kept watching and waiting. It was only at about 66 minutes into the movie that I saw her--and she was quite beautiful after all those years in films. Bit this simply wasn't enough and the film seemed like 106 wasted minutes of my life.
