Thoughts on Bluebeard

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 4:47 PM By Simon

-A retelling of the famous folk tale, as framed/joined by two sisters reading the storybook in their attic.

-What I loved about this was how...well told the story was. Usually, with any sort of cinematic adaption of folktales, in order for them to appear more real than the admittedly vague original content, they'll add romance or a wacky sidekick. Catherine Breillet manages to make us relate to these characters--Bluebeard, apparently a gentle giant, his newest young bride, who may be much more devious than she lets on. Without any sort of 'modern' tinges, the characters feel just as real as the little girls reading the story (although I feel they go hand-in-hand, but that's another thing), and when they read real excerts from a version of the story, it's rather jarring, hearing everything we just saw reduced to a few lines. The relationship between the bride and her sister, established for the first half of the movie, in fact, feels more real than the modern sisters.

-The parallels are too obvious to make. One is the other, they're all the same.

-Oh, whatever. Theaorize of the ending. See if I care.

3 comments:

SugaryCynic said...

I remember seeing a video or trailer for this somewhere and being interested. You seem mostly positive-ish about it, so I'll have to check it out

February 1, 2011 at 6:03 PM
Simon said...

Sugary: Indeed you will.

February 2, 2011 at 7:58 AM
Notas Sobre Creación Cultural e Imaginarios Sociales said...

So beautiful indeed! Haha plus I imagined what a wacky sidekick a la Breillat would be like and that's a sight I don't really wanna see.

February 3, 2011 at 2:02 PM