Film Reviews

FANTASY BLUEBEARD (15) 107min ●●●●●

Charles Perrault’s dark and misogynistic tale about a nobleman with a penchant for uxoricide (murder of a wife) seems like perfect literary fodder for a director as intrigued by the dynamics of sexuality and gender as Catherine Breillat. Related through two time frames, that of the present and 17th century France, the director recasts this piece of folklore as the troubling reflection of a young girl’s mind and, in the process of doing so, explores the contradictions inherent in both romantic and feminist impulses. As she did with her previous film The Last Mistress

Breillat takes a definitively feminist approach to re- telling this infamous story. Unlike that film, however, Bluebeard is somewhat visually sparse; shot on digital video, there is an immediacy or simplicity to these images that collapses the boundaries between the past and the present, the real and the imaginary, but offers the viewer little to revel in as a result. Despite this, a number of visual references to painting are used within

the narrative (most noticeably to Caravaggio).

Given the horrific aspects of the source material and Breillat’s intrepid attitude towards filming ‘real’ sex, some viewers may be surprised over the lack of explicit violence and sexuality. This is not to say that these characteristic themes of the director’s are not present, they are merely sublimated within the extremities of a young imagination here.

The young cast of unknown actors are uniformly excellent; in particular Lola Creton, who plays Bluebeard’s young wife, manages to embody a combination of awakening sensuality and youthful naivety in a manner that would be hard to imagine a Hollywood ‘starlet’ pulling off. Similarly, Dominique Thomas as the eponymous ogre imbues the role with humanity and pathos.

While this is certainly a minor piece within the

director’s oeuvre and not as complex as some of her previous work (such as Romance and A ma soeur) it is well worth viewing if only as a highly idiosyncratic take on the fairytale or costume drama genres. (Anna Rogers) Cameo, Edinburgh and selected release from Fri 16 Jul.

ROMANTIC DRAMA LEAVING (15) 85min ●●●●● Catalan-born actor Sergi López is making a name for himself as the least likely romantic lead in cinema. After wooing Rinko Kikuchi in Isabel Coixet’s Map of the Sounds of Tokyo, he’s now at it again with Kristin Scott Thomas’ well-to-do leading lady. Scott plays bored bourgeois housewife Suzanne, who wants to return to work as a physiotherapist now that the kids are growing up. Her doctor husband (Yvan Attal) illegally employs a paunchy, dark-haired Spanish construction worker (Lopez) to build an extension in their lush house in the South of France. Suzanne promptly falls in love with the construction worker and pursues him as a way out of her current ennui. Director Catherine Corsini tries to take an even-handed approach to each character by showing how confusion and foibles leads to selfishness but it’s undone somewhat as, ultimately, the doctor comes across as the villain of the piece. He’s always treated his wife more like property than a partner. The patriarchal power position is reinforced as he uses his class position as a weapon against her new beau. Told from Suzanne’s perspective it just feels like nothing new is being added to the predictable two guys and a girl power shtick. (Kaleem Aftab) Selected release from Fri 9 Jul.

DRAMA WOMEN WITHOUT MEN (15) 100min ●●●●●

Director Shirin Neshat made her name as an artist, mainly in the area of photography, who carefully exploited Islamic gender issues. Women Without Men, her cinematic debut, started life as a visual installation, and the finished product places Neshat alongside Steve McQueen and Douglas Gordon as artists who have recently made a successful transition from gallery to picture house. Based loosely on a magical realist novel by Shahrnush Parsipur, the action takes

place during Iran in August 1953 when, in an Anglo-American supported coup d’etat, the Shah was installed as supreme ruler in place of Mohammed Mossadegh’s democratically elected government. The director’s ability to conjure up metaphor and allegories, both visual and narrative, is used here to ensure that while the action ostensibly takes place in 1953, it’s also a comment on present- day Iran and the Middle East, where Anglo-American activities still dictate daily life. The five female protagonists in the novel have been reduced to four. Delta star Orsi Toth plays a fleeing prostitute who finds refuge in a public bath. 30-year old Munis (Shabnam Toloui) is unmarried, to the chagrin of her brother, and spends her days glued to the radio listening to the news. Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni) wants to marry Munis’ brother but instead joins an underground communist group. The oldest woman, Fakhri, (Arita Shahrzad) is married to an ungrateful general and when an old flame returns to Tehran she leaves her husband and buys an orchard, towards which the characters gravitate.

Although uneven in patches, this is a pertinent work on female resilience, made with an array of images painstakingly constructed for insightful social, political and artistic commentary. (Kaleem Aftab) GFT, Glasgow from Fri 16–Thu 22 Jul.

50 THE LIST 8–22 Jul 2010