If you are familiar with some of director Catherine Breillat's previous works, you might enter this with a certain expectation to see genitalia and penetrative sex. But in her adaptation of the fairy tale of Blue Beard there is thankfully none.
In olden days, when two young sisters are removed from the private school after their father dies they return to live with their mother and circumstances look dire. A local Lord, known as Blue Beard has a reputation for the ladies and rumours abound that his previous wives and lovers, now missing, were murdered by him. After an invite to a gathering at his castle, one of the young sisters befriends the giant Lord and their marriage is arranged. Marie loves to the cold stark castle aware of the reputation her new husband has and demands that due to her age she sleep in a separate room until she is of age to consummate the marriage. Blue Beard travels away on occasion leaving Marie to her own devises. Amongst this we have in more modern times two young sisters play in an attic and the younger taunts her older more sensitive sister by reading her the story of Blue Beard which she finds scary.
This adaptation is at times very clunky to watch. The cast seem very amateurish and some scenes look like it's been made by a student production. Whilst not familiar with the story, it appears to be quite dark and yet there never really is a sense of foreboding in the film and it never really enters in really dark territory which doesn't work in it's favour. Only near the end does the film show a darker element as Marie faces the consequences of her actions and the modern tale of the two sisters takes an unfortunate turn.
The younger cast do quite well, especially the young girls in the modern part. In fact they provide the only real enjoyment throughout the film as the younger tease and taunts her sister and some of their conversations are priceless. Yet at first these scenes when they appear add confusion to the story as it's not immediately apparent what is happening. The castle settings, in fact the whole setting looks overly baron and cold and it looks odd, especially as there is no contrast between Marie's poor family home and the Lord's sumptuous castle.
Overall the film feels a little stagnant that even at 80 minutes running time feels over long. It is a good story, but save for some nice performances and a few laughs from the two modern sisters, this seems like a bad attempt at film making that clearly shows it's low budget.
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