Bluebeard

I'm a big fan of French director Catherine Breillat, but circumstances have conspired to prevent me seeing her 2009 film Bluebeard (Barbe Bleue). Until now.


A micro-budget retelling of the fairy tale story based on the life of 15th century serial killer and kiddy fiddler, the nobleman (sic) Gilles de Rais, the source material is the first literary work featuring a serial killer.

I'm rather partial to Angela Carter's glorious reworking of it in The Bloody Chamber, a book Breillat claims not to have read, but in any case this bloodiest of fairy tales is the least susceptible to the Disney treatment.


Breillat has a great time playing with the Freudian symbolism: the rich Lord Bluebeard takes a child bride back to his castle and she chooses the smallest room to sleep in (where she will stay until she is old enough for them to have sex). The vast bulk of Bluebeard is too large to get through the door into her bedroom. Yeah, no subtlety here.


Breillat tells the traditional story entwined with a more modern tale of two sisters, mirroring the fairy tale but also reflecting her own relationship with her older sister. Although since the older sister in the film dies, maybe that's not something we should dwell on here.


The sub-titlers have tried to murder the film. They have one of our 15th century protagonists using the phrase "scumbag" (a term invented in the early twentieth century by mealy-mouthed Americans who objected to the original term of abuse, "cumbag" -- ie, a condom filled with sperm). The phrase "Tu comprend?" was translated as "Get it?".

It's tiresome to have American spellings on a French film in the English market ("neighbors" was particularly annoying) -- this was a digital projection so I fail to see why it can't be customised to the local market. But there's no excuse for translating "cinq minutes" as "in a jiffy". For fuck's sake.


But there were plenty of opportunities to be distracted -- by the sheer verve of the film, the delightful acting, the joyful (if improbably laundered) costumes, and the familiarly creepy story.

And, of course, there was Adrien Ledoux:


As Bluebeard's emissary he was all oily charm. But if I were Bluebeard I wouldn't have bothered looking beyond my castle gates for sexy fun and high jinks. Adrien looks mighty fine to me.