2009 New York Film Festival to Premiere Film About First "Serial Killer"--Bluebeard/La Barbe Bleue
Bluebeard/La Barbe Bleue, directed by French director Catherine Breillat, is a meditation on the human fascination with the dark fairy tale of "Bluebeard" by Charles Perrault. Breillat's film finds two young girls in the 1950's reading the ancient tale. According to the film's website, one of the young girls, Catherine enjoys scaring her older sister with the gruesome tale and making her cry. Catherine casts herself in the fairy tale as the virgin Princess Marie-Catherine, Bluebeard's last wife who survives him. The film compares Perrault's tale with other fairy tales pre-Disney, equating Bluebeard himself with the children eating ogres of old.
The original "Bluebeard" is one of Perrault's eight tales in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, published in Paris in 1697. It is the story of a rich aristocrat with an ugly blue beard. He has been married several times, but no one knows what ever happens to any of his brides. He is feared and avoided by the local girls. He finally convinces one young girl to marry him, although she and her older sister are terrified of him. After they are married he goes away on a long trip, leaving her the keys to the castle, including a forbidden room. She immediately wants to see what is in the room. What she discovers is the ghastly remains of Bluebeard's previous wives hanging on the walls.
Breillat's Bluebeard/La Barbe Bleue has been featured at numerous film festivals around the world this year including Festival Nouveau Cinéma Montréal, Seattle IFF, and Berlinale 2009 Panorama. Catherine Breillat has been a successful writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker for many years. Her first novel, L'homme facile, was published in 1968. She made her directorial debut in 1976 with the film Une Vraie Jeune Fille, which was based on her novel Le Soupirail, published in 1974.
Sources:
2009 New York Film Festival
Published by DJ Westerfield
DJ Westerfield has been writing since childhood, and editing for six years. For more than five years Mrs. Westerfield was a freelance editor, her clients included individual writers and several online e-publ... View profile
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