68. Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
The minimalist settings, doubled storytelling and interplay between two little sisters reading a version of Bluebeard by Charles Perrault, and the story of Bluebeard depicted in simple, clean, stark detail turns the audience into wide eyed children. The movie has all the fun of being read a great and scary yarn as a kid, but with the complexity and primal anxiety of fairy tale. There are religious overtones, sibling rivalries, lost fathers, radiant faces, memorable picture-book set pieces, and dark fairy tale lessons about disobedient children. The ending is wonderfully provocative. Her images are laugh out loud minimalistic, and some gorgeous stagings between the resplendent young wife and her dark, shadowy ogre of a husband, Bluebeard, who loves mushrooms, and who may have a soft spot in his heart for his child bride, if only he weren’t a mass murderer. It’s a zippy 75 minutes of great artsy movie making. I find it unfortunate that audiences may not have the attention and patience for Breillat’s clean, patient, complex and beautifully humanist vision.