Bleu de Chanel: The Film

A commercial by award-winning Brit director Steve McQueen ("Hunger", "Shame" and "12 Years a Slave") for the Chanel fragrance Bleu starring French actor Gaspard Ulliel and model Nur Hellmann. In "Bleu de Chanel: The Film", Ulliel is amazed by a woman he sees on the window across the street and desperatly tries to find her, from running through the streets and even jumping on the water. Was she there or not? Was it a mirage or was she real? It's up to viewers to get what they want or understand Gaspard's final look at the sky.

McQueen composes the ad with two elements that are more appealing than the beauty of his cast: the shades of blue of the cinematography that fill each shot and that's the way he sells the brand ("Bleu" is blue in French); and "Starman" by David Bowie as the soundtrack which I believe has drown several viewers to the film. That combination of image and sound gave a futuristic appeal to the commercial. Compared with recent similar advertisement this one was okay, quite easy, didn't fell into the "hot couple in love" plot but it lacks something more. I've seen several substantial and more thoughtful comments about it, more poetic stuff in order to explain what's presented as a story but I didn't get much of that. It was too simple for me to imagine more than what it is.

Gaspard Ulliel has another promos for the brand and they were a lot more special and interesting than this - one shot in black-and-white more focused on his looks; and another where he performs himself during a press conference that had this intense moment the camera gives a close-up and he breaks the fourth wall. Those were great and this one was quite good. 8/10

I loved the old fashion poetry of story , serving in more gentle - precise manner the romance as axis of Bleu de Chanel.

The beautiful woman who can be only an illusion. The young man decided to find her. The streets, water, the eroticism. Not the last, the inspired sound.

Sure, like a kind of Rubick cube, different versions of a story who sounds the same in commercial of Gaspard Ulliel from 2010 or Timotee Chalamet in 2024. But this classic perspective works, maybe only for few people, like me, better. Because it works as large opened window to a world in decay. And, for its survivers , this detail real - real matters.