Bluebeard

Infused with a sumptuous elegance, Catherine Breillat's eerie retelling of the Charles Perrault fairytale Bluebeard is very sensual and highly stylized while adhering to an almost literary interpretation of the story. Shown at the Vancouver Film Festival, the film operates on parallel levels, both involving two sisters. In the first story, two young sisters play in the attic of their home in France in the present time. Catherine, who according to Breillat's autobiographical material, represents the director, plays power games with her older but more withdrawn sister Marie-Anne by tormenting her with readings of the classic horror story "Bluebeard".

While young Catherine is reading the story, the drama plays out on the screen in a setting that looks like the 16th century. Another pair of sisters Anne (Daphne Baiwir) and Marie-Catherine (Lola Créton) (note the similarity in names) receive sad news at a convent from a coldly unfeeling Mother Superior that their father was killed while trying to save a little girl. Without means to continue at their private school, the girls are unceremoniously thrown out. On the way home, they pass Bluebeard's Castle and comment on the local aristocrat who, rumor has it, married many wives who strangely disappeared.

It is not long until the corpulent Bluebeard (Dominique Thomas) begins to court the young and attractive Marie-Catherine. Without money for a dowry, Marie-Catherine, undaunted by the whispers, agrees to marry the wealthy Bluebeard. The film then moves back and forth between the two stories, with the younger girls' reading and commenting on the fairytale providing comic relief for the heavy drama of male power and female sexual awareness unfolding at the castle. Marie-Catherine seems to have charmed Bluebeard who appears loving but whose intimidating frame towers over the slender virgin.

Marie has, however, cannily set things up in her favor. She has chosen for herself a room so small that the hefty Bluebeard cannot enter but she can tiptoe down the hall and peek into the room where he is getting undressed. When he goes away on an unspecified trip, Marie-Catherine invites her sister Anne to the house and they have much fun but Marie is sad until her new husband returns home one month later. Before leaving on his second trip, however, he gives his wife a key to a mysterious room in the cellar with the impossible instruction not to open the door. Frightened of disobeying her husband but tantalized by the secret, Marie-Catherine unlocks the mystery chamber only to be confronted by her worst fears and the story plays out in Breillat's provocative and unpredictable fashion.

Bluebeard's setting immerses the audience in a world that is far removed from today's realities, yet teenage newcomer Lola Créton gives Marie-Catherine a playful confidence and pride to go along with her natural purity and innocence in a way that speaks to today's feminist sensibilities. Going backwards and forwards in time also highlights the universal qualities inherent in the Gothic fairy tales that, even when they are decidedly dark as in this case, have a lot to teach us about confronting our fears, lessons often hidden by the pandering of Walt Disney animation. Resonant with wit and sexual tension, Catherine Breillat has, in Bluebeard reestablished the reality of the world of children both full of terror and untold beauty and, in the process, has created a minor masterpiece.

Despite possibly the most charming child performance in a movie ever (no I have not watched all movies ever) by Marilou Lopes-Benites, I didn't allow myself to fall for Bluebeard, though this little girl narrator is so winsome that on occasion her charm has the audience gasping.

The way that Bluebeard is shot is very casual, almost matter-of-fact and Rohmerian, strangely for what is potentially such an atmospheric story. The level of graft going on is very low, more befitting a conversational type film a la Rohmer. I also took badly to a scene of animal slaughter that seemed inhumane.

I think comparisons with Tarsem Singh's wonderful movie The Fall are beneficial. In both movies there have two timelines, the first, the timeline of narration is set in the early Twentieth Century, the second is a period fantasy being narrated. In both movies there is a charming child actress, in The Fall it's Catinca Untaru. Where The Fall succeeds in my view is that the fantastical narrative really feels like a product of the narrators' minds. In Bluebeard, even though the girls are reading from a book, the resultant fantasy doesn't feel like a product of their minds, but distinctly a product of Catherine Breillat's mind, too knowing and sophisticated. Quite clearly for example the children would not have been imagining the squirming of a dying animal. Even though the narration is less ostentatious, and takes up less screen time, as with The Fall you really can make a case for it being the most moving part.

I think Breillat did manage to access the essence of the Bluebeard story which is that if you are a big ugly sensitive oaf, you are condemned to not participate in life, one of my fondest quotes, from Le Quai Des Brumes / Port of Shadows (in French it's more eloquent) is "It's horrible to love like Romeo when you look like Bluebeard!". I think that's what worse is that women often don't acknowledge that it's possible that such a man could have the feelings of Romeo, as if only pretty and graceful men could feel like that. Something that should never be forgotten is that passion is something everyone feels.

Brief summary of the plot is that Bluebeard is a rich man rumoured to have murdered previous wives. He takes new wives without dowry, and persuades Marie-Catherine, a child bride, to marry him. There are some funny post marital scenes, like when Bluebeard is sat eating an ostrich egg, and Marie-Catherine is sat eating a quail egg side by side.

I really am fond of the movie, but I would have liked to see more mise-en-scene, the movie as I say, is far too casual. There is a feeling of great boredom that arises from the last scene of the fantasy strand, in a scene that should perhaps be incredibly stirring.

I was curious about a new adaptation of this classic story. After all, there is nothing like a good old story to sustain a movie. As i watched, i was more and more surprised. I kept wondering how can a film maker do such a bad job and let it out for the public to see... I tried to give it a chance, hoping that it will improve, but i was too optimistic. I wouldn't want to criticize something to the point of convincing others to avoid it, but in this case it felt like a civic duty. To put it briefly, bad scenario, awful dialogues, unremarkable camera work, unbelievably bad cinema; a pittiful adaptation. I'm sorry to say such bad stuff about other people's work. I'm sure they didn't want to do a bad job, but sometimes that's how things go. Wish them better luck next time. OK now. Time to forget this disappointment. Don't waste time on this one.

When I think of Catherine Breillat, I think of Fat Girl, Romance and Anatomy of Hell. Films that delve deep into the complex issues surrounding gender with an unabashedly confident auteur at the helm. Films that had an almost bland style but contained strong performances and incendiary ideas.

Barbe Bleue is a decent film, has some nice visuals (coupled with some really sloppy cinematography) and is pretty good for a made-for-TV movie. Viewers familiar with Breillat's other work, however, will definitely be disappointed.

Long story short, don't see this film. If you're looking for a French period piece, see Queen Margot or Cyrano de Bergerac. If you're a Breillat fan hoping this will be a return to form, you will unfortunately be quite disappointed.

Catherine Breillat's canny revision of the Bluebeard myth is rigorous and assured like her other work. This time she keeps her usual provocations at bay, but the movie is no less compelling for it, with human folly bubbling at the surface of every interaction. The casting, acting, camera work and editing are subdued but still expressive, and the director interrupts the plain and direct storytelling at just the right moments in order to get at her points--albeit in curious and elusive ways.

Some remark how this movie feels boring or its commentary is obvious, but for me the approach makes room for as much complexity and humanity as Breillat brings to her other, more notorious work. If you are a fan of the more cerebral classics of world cinema, this one courses with the energy of the old masters: traces of Buñuel's Tristana are here, as are Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc and Mizoguchi's Life of Oharu.