Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat, 2009)

Of all the directors pushing the buttons of film-goers around the world, Catherine Breillat might be my favorite. Granted, I've only seen three of her films, but my respect for her was so firmly solidified after watching the first, 2001's remarkable Fat Girl, that even if 2007's The Last Mistress had been a disappointment, she'd still rank highly in my book.

Luckily it wasn't, and neither is her latest film, Bluebeard. Simultaneously recounting the fairytale of Bluebeard, the titular ogre who marries beautiful young women and kills them soon thereafter, as well as showing us two young sisters (the younger, more precocious of the two named Catherine – go figure) in the 1950’s who scare each other with the story in their attic. Clocking in at under an hour and a half, the film may seem slight to some viewers, but Breillat's packed it with enough of her trademark interesting ideas as to give her audience plenty to chew on.

The whole thing is vintage Breillat: long, quiet takes; minimal music; sudden and disturbing violence. Impressive performances are coaxed from the young actresses portraying dual sets of sisters. The relationships between the girls is a big part of the film; no surprise from the woman responsible for one of the most honest looks at adolescences and sisterhood, Fat Girl. Further questions of gender and class are raised, but never obviously.

The fairytale is pure horrorshow stuff. The scene where the ogre’s young bride disobeys him and opens the door to the room filled with his former wives' bodies hanging from the rafters, dripping pools of Argento blood below them is silently terrifying. Of course we know what's behind the door, just as our heroine does, but isn't that the fun of revisiting a favorite story? Breillat’s command over the macabre and the perverse, as well as her appreciation for the original, makes me want her to remake Passolini's Salo. But since that will never happen, I’ll gladly settle for more films like Bluebeard. [A-] 80min, video