Film ReviewsLa Chambre Bleue (The Blue Room)Nov 20, 2014, Anchorage Press
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Mathieu Amalric stars in and directs The Blue Room or La Chambre Bleue (original French title), a thriller that unfolds from a love affair gone awry. Amalric's adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel by the same title is both predictable and inconclusive, but this is easily overlooked because Amalric manages to sustain an unyielding level of suspense throughout the film and delivers it with beautiful cinematography and a musical score worthy of an old Hitchcock flick.
Amalric plays Julien Gahyde, an average, middle aged man with a stable life, a stable marriage, a young daughter, a good job, etc. He is not particularly exceptional until he reunites with an old acquaintance, Esther Despierre (Cléau) and they start an illicit affair that reveals the depth of their respective characters. Esther is tall, just tall enough for Julien to have to stretch to kiss her; she is slightly aloof and a little obsessive. The camera follows her lead and introduces her indirectly by showing viewers parts of her, her neck laced with perspiration, her hair, her deep set eyes, her sex as she turns from one side of the bed to another, until the viewer feels that Esther is known to him or her. The two lovers have a history of an unrealized past attraction that laid dormant until they met again. It's difficult for viewers to know if the root of the affair is true love repressed, ennui, loneliness, or perhaps a combination of the three. Léa Drucker plays the unsuspecting wife, Delphine Gahyde. Delphine's role is delicate but she anchors Julien in his quotidian existence, one which he jettisons in the confines of a blue hotel room and the sweaty acquiescence of sex with Esther.
Affairs, extramarital or not, are curious things; no two are exactly alike, most are complicated and some are deadly. The Blue Room is a multifaceted art film. As with many art films, sometimes the plot gets lost in the other elements of the film. In the case of The Blue Room one would think that the plot is not only central but also nailed down since the story unfolds through the juxtaposition of the past and present. The director cuts to and from scenes from the interrogation room to scenes of the affair, family and work life up until the arrest of Julien and Esther. And yet, viewers expecting the conclusion of the film to align with the evidence (or lack thereof) may be left scratching their heads about how it was that it all did or did not make sense.
The Blue Room is not a thriller that is neatly resolved and put away-it's about mood, suspense and the experience of following the foreshadowing elements presented by Amalric. The foreshadowing elements adhere to Chekhov's dramatic principle that requires that every element in a narrative be necessary and irreplaceable. The color blue is a primary player in the film (pun not intended). This is also in agreement with the novel's author about use of elements in a story. In an interview with the Paris Review in 1955, Simenon talks about the element of atmosphere. "And with the mood goes the season, goes the detail-at first it is almost like a musical theme," he said. Here, Amalric weaves the blue theme expertly in the film, using light and details like a blue tie, or a blue windowsill off the edge of the frame to keep the sexual and intimate mood of the affair present throughout the entire film.
What is it about the color blue and its relationship to sex, affairs, and betrayal that links that shade to art or movies about that ilk of taboo subjects? The Blue Room, although somewhat sexually explicit, is not a blue movie (pornography), it doesn't even reach the decadence of a film like Blue Velvet, and neither Esther nor Delphine come close to the character of China Blue in Crimes of Passion. The Blue Room is on the other side of the blue spectrum, along the likes of Kie?lowski's Blue-it's a lament for ill-fated timing, hurting those one loves, and a total loss of control.
Viewers who follow this genre of film closely may experience a nagging and persistent sense of déjà vu. They are correct. La Chambre Bleue, before it was made into The Blue Room, was made into La Habitación Azul, which also translates into the title of this film. La Habitación Azul was released in theaters in 2002, it's a Mexican-Spanish adaptation of the same novel directed by Walter Doehner and starring Juan Manuel Bernal, Patricia LLaca, and the incomparable Elena Anaya. Movies are made and remade all the time but what is striking about this remake is that with the exception of the mood and the ending, the plot of The Blue Room is play, by play, almost exactly the same as the Mexican-Spanish production. Both adaptations follow the novel closely, almost too closely. The ways in which the two productions differ, however, make both worth watching. In the Mexican-Spanish production, the plot is better developed and the ending makes sense, the actors are younger and the sex scenes are aesthetically pleasing and adhere to stereotypical ideas of sensuality. The Blue Room, however, presents a more seasoned reality of sex and affairs, the characters are deeper, and the room itself is a character that embodies desire and seems to exist primarily for this purpose.
The Blue Room (French with English subtitles) plays at 8 p.m. on Monday, November 24 at Bear Tooth.
Amalric plays Julien Gahyde, an average, middle aged man with a stable life, a stable marriage, a young daughter, a good job, etc. He is not particularly exceptional until he reunites with an old acquaintance, Esther Despierre (Cléau) and they start an illicit affair that reveals the depth of their respective characters. Esther is tall, just tall enough for Julien to have to stretch to kiss her; she is slightly aloof and a little obsessive. The camera follows her lead and introduces her indirectly by showing viewers parts of her, her neck laced with perspiration, her hair, her deep set eyes, her sex as she turns from one side of the bed to another, until the viewer feels that Esther is known to him or her. The two lovers have a history of an unrealized past attraction that laid dormant until they met again. It's difficult for viewers to know if the root of the affair is true love repressed, ennui, loneliness, or perhaps a combination of the three. Léa Drucker plays the unsuspecting wife, Delphine Gahyde. Delphine's role is delicate but she anchors Julien in his quotidian existence, one which he jettisons in the confines of a blue hotel room and the sweaty acquiescence of sex with Esther.
Affairs, extramarital or not, are curious things; no two are exactly alike, most are complicated and some are deadly. The Blue Room is a multifaceted art film. As with many art films, sometimes the plot gets lost in the other elements of the film. In the case of The Blue Room one would think that the plot is not only central but also nailed down since the story unfolds through the juxtaposition of the past and present. The director cuts to and from scenes from the interrogation room to scenes of the affair, family and work life up until the arrest of Julien and Esther. And yet, viewers expecting the conclusion of the film to align with the evidence (or lack thereof) may be left scratching their heads about how it was that it all did or did not make sense.
The Blue Room is not a thriller that is neatly resolved and put away-it's about mood, suspense and the experience of following the foreshadowing elements presented by Amalric. The foreshadowing elements adhere to Chekhov's dramatic principle that requires that every element in a narrative be necessary and irreplaceable. The color blue is a primary player in the film (pun not intended). This is also in agreement with the novel's author about use of elements in a story. In an interview with the Paris Review in 1955, Simenon talks about the element of atmosphere. "And with the mood goes the season, goes the detail-at first it is almost like a musical theme," he said. Here, Amalric weaves the blue theme expertly in the film, using light and details like a blue tie, or a blue windowsill off the edge of the frame to keep the sexual and intimate mood of the affair present throughout the entire film.
What is it about the color blue and its relationship to sex, affairs, and betrayal that links that shade to art or movies about that ilk of taboo subjects? The Blue Room, although somewhat sexually explicit, is not a blue movie (pornography), it doesn't even reach the decadence of a film like Blue Velvet, and neither Esther nor Delphine come close to the character of China Blue in Crimes of Passion. The Blue Room is on the other side of the blue spectrum, along the likes of Kie?lowski's Blue-it's a lament for ill-fated timing, hurting those one loves, and a total loss of control.
Viewers who follow this genre of film closely may experience a nagging and persistent sense of déjà vu. They are correct. La Chambre Bleue, before it was made into The Blue Room, was made into La Habitación Azul, which also translates into the title of this film. La Habitación Azul was released in theaters in 2002, it's a Mexican-Spanish adaptation of the same novel directed by Walter Doehner and starring Juan Manuel Bernal, Patricia LLaca, and the incomparable Elena Anaya. Movies are made and remade all the time but what is striking about this remake is that with the exception of the mood and the ending, the plot of The Blue Room is play, by play, almost exactly the same as the Mexican-Spanish production. Both adaptations follow the novel closely, almost too closely. The ways in which the two productions differ, however, make both worth watching. In the Mexican-Spanish production, the plot is better developed and the ending makes sense, the actors are younger and the sex scenes are aesthetically pleasing and adhere to stereotypical ideas of sensuality. The Blue Room, however, presents a more seasoned reality of sex and affairs, the characters are deeper, and the room itself is a character that embodies desire and seems to exist primarily for this purpose.
The Blue Room (French with English subtitles) plays at 8 p.m. on Monday, November 24 at Bear Tooth.