The Blue Room

"Life is different from when you live it to when you look back at it"

-Julien

I first heard of this picture when it was selected to be a part of the Cannes Film Festival. I was curious to see what the buzz would be since the film was directed by Mathieu Amalric, a French actor I very much admire and I found to be very underrated. This was not his first shot at directing since I believe this is actually his fourth or third picture. The buzz that eventually came was good and I was interested to see it since it had been recently released in theaters near me.

The Blue Room is Directed by Mathieu Amalric and it stars Mathieu Amalric, Léa Drucker and Stéphanie Cléau. "A man and a woman, secretly in love, alone in a room. They desire each other, want each other, and even bite each other. In the afterglow, they share a few sweet nothings. At least the man seemed to believe they were nothing. Now under investigation by the police and the courts, what is he accused of?"

I was interested, curious to see what this film was all about, still I had my expectations low, which opened room for surprise. I got to say that the film was indeed a little surprise, it didn't at all disappoint. It's a modest, even if tidy little picture that's unexpectedly inventive in its film-making and narrative/storytelling choices.

This is one of those films that the grand majority wont see, even major film buffs, and I do think that that is a shame, because although far from being a knockout, it is still worth your watch. This small, tight tiny 75 minute picture is an adaptation of a novel by Georges Simenon, a novel of the same name. Simenon would probably be impressed with the run-time since the man could write novels in only a few weeks.

It's small film, that never really aspires to be anything bigger, I did think that I lacked a little bit of ambition and when the film ends we don't feel totally fulfilled mainly also because we don't see much of the point in this story. "So what" is probably going to be the reaction of many going out of the theater, and others will undeniably be thrown out by an unconventional way of storytelling, which made things a bit confusing at times but all the more engaging, fresh and exciting as an whole. It's a film that will probably disappoint bigger audiences (those who even get to see it), since it's a film with a high level of ambiguity and it has disorienting story-telling, you will leave with little answers, or no answers at all. The film focuses on the ambiguity and interpretation of memory, actions and intentions.

I left with the theater with little answers and I did get the feeling of "So What" when the credits start to roll but still I got to say that I did enjoy myself. Amalric beautifully constructs and puts together this film, honoring its source material. We are kept in two different times and spaces during the film, first inside Julien's head and his memories, or at least his perception and we also get to see things from the future, where he is in jail and being questioned about his love affair with an old friend from high- school who is now his lover. What did the man do? Are we seeing the memories of a murder? Is he guilty of whatever he is being charged with? Those questions keep going through our heads as we soon start to find more and more meandering pieces of this jigsaw who's eventually left undone.

The acting is also excellent. Mathieu Amalric leads his own cast and he's as always fantastic. Is this the face of a killer? Is he innocent? Great display of talent once again, he doesn't either give easy answers in the directing or in the acting, effective and powerful though. We believe for every second his on screen, that that guy is really there and we believe in his existence. The supporting cast is also very good, nothing too showy but they do their jobs. Amalric is really the man to be applauded, he directs, acts and adapts the source material, all with little or no flaws at all. I applaud is boldness and creativity when it came to storytelling and putting the film together in the editing room. It is successful as a modest suspense picture and as a drama, it fails a bit because it feels a bit too tame, small and it ultimately doesn't leave a big mark on you, even though I wont forget it soon.

Rating:B-

This is really quite a simple story. Man has affair with other man's wife. Has wife and family but re-unites with woman he met before his marriage. They have a series of trysts. She has a husband who has a serious medical condition and one day he dies. Unfortunately, the woman is a pharmacist and it appears that they have done a "Postman Always Rings Twice" murder. The whole thing focuses on a bewildered man who realizes that his actions have a consequence. He's not even sure what has happened as he sits in a courtroom. Sometimes justice is less about criminal justice and more about moral justice. A slow moving psychological drama based on a George Simenon novel.

not an ordinary adaptation. the spirit of many contemporary French films. Mathieu Amalric using same tools to build his character. a Simenon in different manner. a cold film about relationship and decisions, about guilty and events who has a strange touching manner to surprise the viewer not for evolution of events but for the attitudes of characters. a film of silence and guilty out of facts. because it preserves the Greek mark of destiny, the poetry of things, the emotions as a kind of fog. nothing clear, each detail as part of a sort of ambiguity and slow rhythm of events. a film with a specific target who could seems be boring for many. but useful with few drops of patience. and with a crumb of interest for Simenon universe.

This is exactly the kind of movie which grows on you.Based on a Simenon book , the story could have descended towards the banalities of the love triangle , a situation we've been told so many times here there and everywhere.That the opening scene may be very hot does not help for that matter.

Mathieu Amalric is fully aware of this ;his film looks like a jig saw puzzle ,with a very smart construction . When his film begins ,the die is cast :it's a long questioning by policemen and judges ; all the tragedy is told little by little, with flashbacks and portraits of the characters alive of dead : Almaric does not even fall in the trap of sentimentality : this is amour fou,in the fullest sense of the term ,but the characters are not really endearing : Esther is a selfish unsympathetic attractive woman who "waits-deadpan- for her sick husband to die " and one cannot blame her mother-in-law 's petulant attitude .The same goes for her lover -not so handsome ,after all - who 's got everything going for him ,a loving wife -with whom the viewer has a tendency to side, mainly when he knows the truth ,a cute child ,a desirable dwelling -one of the envious men calls it a b......t house during the trial- and thriving business.

This looks like a news item : one has the odd feeling of discovering the affair day by day ,with new revelations ; and Amalric deserves a bouquet for sparing us a looooong trial with the de rigueur brilliant lawyer : in this context ,it would be totally irrelevant : amour fou can't be explained ,period.

Slow moving (although only 76 minutes long), starting in the middle of confusion and sexual passion, and only very gradually revealing exactly what the central mystery being examined even is. All we know is that middle-class Julien (expertly played by director Amalric) and sexy, cold and intense Esther (the excellent Stephanie Cleau) have tremendous sexual chemistry, if not much real emotion between them. They are both married to other people, and we soon learn something awful has happened that has caused Julien to be under intense questioning by the police. All the other details are only revealed bit by bit as the story jumps around through a fractured time-scape.

Amalric uses the camera to underline and echo elements of the tricky construction, using odd, disquieting close ups that give us only a bit of the big picture, or pulling back to beautifully framed but distant feeling wider shots that give us the geography, but don't let us inside. The performances too – both by the leads and all the supporting characters – also serve the style. They're all dense and meticulously detailed, but it's up to us to figure out what those subtle details of behavior mean. Is that glance a look of love? Desire? Contempt? Does Julien's lawyer believe him? Does Julien's wife suspect or not?

If ultimately this adaptation of a Georges Simenon piece isn't quite as powerful as it's opening leads one to hope, it's still a smart, chilling and impressive directorial effort for Amalric.