La femme en bleu

Second viewing in 40 years. Deville is very distinct in his directorial style--visuals, music and philosophy are used to talk about death (Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" vs Bartok), blue vs red, of children being born into the world crying and Proust's death in peace after hallucinating with fear about a fat woman near his bed. It is indeed a love story--what is life without love? Very interesting original writing by the director. For those who are students of cinema, the phone ringing sequence of the Michel Piccoli character of Pierre's attempted dream suicide is gnawingly similar to the phone ringing in the imagination of the Robert De Niro character in Sergio Leone's "Once upon a time in America" in the opium den. a film made 11 years after Deville's film was made. Was Leone influenced by Deville?

I love French films, so don't assume I disliked this movie because of this. I disliked it because the characters in the film (particularly the one played by the lead, Michel Piccoli) have absolutely no depth to their characters and the story itself has a very, very, very thin and unengaging plot. The bottom line is that I never cared about the guy nor his seemingly pointless quest. Some of this is because he often seemed like a selfish jerk. Perhaps this pointlessness of the character is what the film makers were trying to get at....but I just didn't care.

When the film begins, you find the middle-aged Piccoli is a balding musician whose life consists of one sexual conquest after another. Apparenlty these younger women really go for musicians! Anyway, while on the way to meet an old flame (and his next sexual conquest), he catches a very brief glimpse and then apparently has fallen for this mysterious woman in blue. Talk about a ridiculous plot...and from this point very early in the film until the end, Piccoli (and later he is assisted by a strange ex-lover who he often emotionally abuses for no particular reason) wander aimlessly all over Paris looking for a woman he only saw for a second or two. Now assuming this woman NEVER changes clothes, the chances of finding her in a city this size are very small...and the audience is expected to care about this for some odd reason. It's particularly hard because you don't know the character he plays at all--so why should you care?! I know I sure didn't.

So I had to ask myself why I even bothered to keep watching this dull but occasionally stylistic film. I think it's because I read that Simone Simon was in the film and I kept watching and waiting. It was only at about 66 minutes into the movie that I saw her--and she was quite beautiful after all those years in films. Bit this simply wasn't enough and the film seemed like 106 wasted minutes of my life.

I've seen 2 more recent offerings on DVD from director Michel Deville and quite enjoyed them so I thought I would give "La Femme en Bleu" a try. This one didn't do it for me I'm afraid.

The story is simple enough. Pierre spots "The Woman in Blue" in a shop one day and is instantly intrigued. He wonders to himself whether he should approach her but decides against it. Upon leaving the shop he again sees her in the distance and slowly his intrigue turns into obsession. The rest of the film sees us joining Pierre in his quest to find this mysterious woman. He enlists his friend Edmond to assist in locating her and also draws in his sometime lover Aurelie (Massari) who reluctantly agrees to help him as well.

That's the film really ... at a plot level anyway. Of course, Deville is exploring more deeper concepts here, primarily that of OBSESSION. Pierre's obsession with the mysterious woman in blue and Aurelie's obsession with him. Why would she assist in the search for a potential rival? Perhaps a little bit of the 'if you can't beat him - join him' philosophy perhaps? This is a FRENCH film afterall !! The music of Schubert features prominently throughout as both a background score and often as a plot device. Most films are written and then scored later -- watching this however, I couldn't help but feel the Deville chose some of his favourite Schubert pieces and constructed a film around them. A novel approach if nothing else.

I must say i did find "La Femme en Bleu" quite chauvinistic tho. Piccoli's character is far from likable and why Aurelie tags along just doesn't ring true ... but as I said earlier ... this IS a French film. I doubt it would appeal to a female audience (they may even find it offensive) and, frankly, has little to recommend it it to a male one either.

Not much else that holds. Some 70's montage curiosities, maybe.