Bluebeard's youngest wife
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Bluebeard's youngest wife |
| Original title | Barbel bleue |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Catherine Breillat |
| script | Catherine Breillat |
| production |
Sylvette Frydman Jean-François Lepetit |
| camera | Vilko Filač |
| cut | Pascale Chavance |
| occupation | |
| |
Bluebeard's youngest wife (Barbe bleue) is a French feature film directed by Catherine Breillat in 2009. It is based on the fairy tale Bluebeard by Charles Perrault , published in 1697, and is about the female thirst for knowledge and the attempts of patriarchal men to punish them.
Breillat was interested in the fairy tale because the girl in it loves a serial killer, although she knows about him, and because the girl can deal with her fears. The work premiered at the Berlinale 2009 outside of the competition. In the same year, on October 6, 2009, the film was broadcast by Arte .
action
Two unattended little girls sneak into the attic of their parents' house. There they find a book from which the younger of the frightened older woman reads the centuries-old fairy tale of Bluebeard with relish: Two convent students, Anne and her younger sister Marie-Catherine, are sent home by the superior because their father has had a fatal accident. The girls and their mother are penniless. The rich and terrible monster Bluebeard, of whom it is said that his former wives have all disappeared without a trace, is looking for a new wife. To do this, he calls women and girls from the area to a party to choose a suitable one.
Marie-Catherine becomes his next wife. Instead of moving into one of the spacious rooms of the castle, she chooses a narrow bower. Bluebeard is not allowed to touch it until it counts twenty years. When he went away for several weeks on business errands, he gave her a bundle of keys to all the rooms in the castle and advised her to hold parties with young people to pass the time. Only shortly before his return does she follow his recommendation. She tells him how much she missed him. After a while, he has to go on another trip. This time, in addition to the bunch of keys, he gives her a small golden key that belongs to a chamber that he strictly forbids her to enter. On the first night of his absence, she was unable to withstand the temptation and opened the room. His former wives are hanging in it and there is a pool of blood on the floor. In this she falls the key, which she tries to wash the following day. Bluebeard reappears unexpectedly and soon notices that she has opened the chamber. He explains to her that he must now inevitably kill her. She manages to buy out some time and summon two knights riding by for help. At the end she caresses Bluebeard's severed head lying on a tray.
criticism
Björn Lahrmann from Manifest - Das Filmmagazin referred to the changes of the original material by Breillat, which are not limited to the added frame narrative. She turns the nanny who has been forced into marriage into an actively rebellious adult who is in a kind of sexual competition with her older sister. The light-footed film revolves around the driving forces of lust, fantasy and curiosity "in laconic television aesthetics and painting-like, lavishly to crude furnished tableaux vivants ".
Web links
- Bluebeard's youngest woman in the Internet Movie Database (English)