Barbe bleue

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according to Breillat's autobiographical material, represents the director, plays power games with her older but more withdrawn sister Marie-Anne by tormenting her with readings of the classic horror story "Bluebeard".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.

I felt like I was attending a Riannesance Faire with all the costumes and dancing and people eating without utensils. It was a beautiful movie in that regard.

I wonder at the significance of Bluebeard's clothing. He wore a robe at one time that had IHS on the back, and another time, he seemed to be wearing a stole over his clothing like a priest saying Mass. A disparagement at the patriarchal Catholic Church?

But, that aside, the film which is really two stories in one, is a feminist telling of the Bluebeard story. In both stories, we see a highly patriarchal society, where women are an afterthought. The rules of men must be obeyed.

It is left up to the viewer to determine if things resolved themselves satisfactorily. A bow to Salome in one story, and wish fulfillment in sibling rivalry in another.

It is not your usual Catherine Breillat film. A PG rating would probably be stretching it, only for the blood.

I did not think well of Catherine Breillat's 2010 follow-up 'La belle endormie' with its baffling "interpretation," and on that basis I had poor expectations of this. Why not give her a second chance, though? Everyone deserves one, right? Frankly, to watch 'Barbe bleue,' I'm all the more mystified at the choices Breillat would make for the subsequent feature, for this is at least one thing its successor is not: good. It's still distinctly flawed, mind you, but among this film's discernible faults it at least is internally consistent, with a sensible, solidly written narrative. This may not be a total must-see, but it's modestly enjoyable and fairly worthwhile.

The tale on hand is a simple one, but duly engaging, and made easier with the charm and restrained nuance of chief star Lola Créton. All the while the picture is crafted with tremendous care, with lovely filming locations, and superb production design and art direction to dress them up. The costume design and hair and makeup, not to mention props, are all splendid, helping to cement the period setting. Breillat's direction is excellent in terms of orchestrating shots and scenes - tight and focused, accentuating the small world and limited scope of the fairy tale - and I admire Vilko Fila's mindful cinematography. Though I wish something more were done with it, I rather love the low-key pensiveness of the final shot, what I believe to be a strong finish.

I did say 'Barbe bleue' is flawed, though, and I surely mean it. It struggles with pacing; it feels like stretching this out to 82 minutes was excessive. This is pointedly emphasized by those cutaways to the two children reading a storybook; while possibly worth exploring on their own, here they provide framing that intermittently breaks the flow of the plot instead of meaningfully adding to the movie. The subdued tone I can easily forgive as a matter of stylistic choice, though I can understand how it would be one that's off-putting to other viewers. On the other hand, just as would be seen much more discretely in 'La belle endormie,' some scenes suffer from a weakness of execution (presumably direction) that make them come off as halfhearted, as though the take were only a rehearsal. For that matter, the acting across the board is muted to the point of too often feeling hollow, even from Créton. For as long as Breillat has been making films, such moments are perplexing.

Passably entertaining as this title is, there's nothing remarkable or special about it. Earnest adaptations of other fairy tales have been made that were far richer and more grabbing. This isn't to inherently disparage this rendition, but the disparity is notable, and for lack of any quality that's especially striking it's not something likely to stand as being particularly memorable. I nonetheless appreciate all the work that went into 'Barbe bleue,' and it's suitably satisfying as something to watch on a quiet day. Don't go out of your way for it, but if you're looking for a light feature that doesn't require any form of major investment, this is a decent way to spend 82 minutes.

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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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.