Tagged: French Cinema
Five Reasons: Catherine Breillat’s Barbe Bleue (2009) & Bonus: My Theory on Why Bluebeard’s Blue Beard is Blue
In 2009 Catherine Breillat decided to film Charles Perrault’s famous French folktale Barbe bleue (that’s Bluebeard en anglais). The classic fable was published by Perrault in Paris in 1697, but was set in 15th Century France. The story is about a wealthy French aristocrat who had a blue beard and a passion for young women, namely slitting their lovely throats. His modus operandi included marrying his innocent victims, live with them for a year or less and then kill them. I never really got this story, because I mean come on, why would you kill a beautiful young woman? Continue reading
Three Reasons: Catherine Breillat’s Brief Crossing (2001)
In case you hadn’t noticed Catherine Breillat is one of my favorite French auteurs. Brief Crossing (original title: Brève traversée) is one of her highest rated films on IMDb, but not many people have seen it or talk about it. However I’m sure that a lot of people would enjoy this film, because as we will see it has some interesting ideas about sex and sexual encounters, it’s very sexy and do I really need Three Reasons? Yes? Okay, more sex! There’s not a lot of nudity in this film apart from one rather lengthy sex scene, but one could say that the whole film is about sex, although there’s more than that. Continue reading
Three Reasons: Claire Denis’ Beau Travail (1999)
Considered one of the best films of all time by the illustrious Sight & Sound people, Claire Denis’ Beau Travail is indeed an interesting movie to watch and discuss. In true Criterion fashion I will give you my Three Reasons for enjoying this film as much as I did. It is however the third reason, the ending of the film, which really sold it to me. In fact I loved the ending so much it made me want to make a post about movie endings, but then that’s not really an easy topic to discuss. How do you talk about a film’s ending without spoiling it? Continue reading
Review: Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013) – Abdellatif Kechiche’s Neorealist Love Epic of Extreme Close-Ups and Delicious Spaghetti
*Spoilers Ahoy!*
Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is a quiet and mysterious schoolgirl. She loves reading, eating and sleeping. One sunny day, as she’s on her way to a date, she crosses the coolest blue haired and blue jeans wearing girl in all of France (Léa Seydoux). Their eyes meet for the shortest time and it’s: Bam! Coup de foudre. Love at first sight. That night Adèle dreams of her hot blue lady. At first she tries to fight her instincts, but then it just becomes impossible to resist. After being rejected by her girl crush in school, she decides to go out to a gay bar with her BFF (Sandor Funtek). At this point she almost gave up hope of ever meeting her blue angel again, but as fate would have it, Emma just happens to be hanging out there. In a gay bar? Who would have thought! Continue reading
black is white 