User Reviews

Mathieu Amalric's talent is not an unknown quantity to American filmgoers. He won the César for his role as Jean-Dominique Bauby, who after a severe stroke, woke up speechless, and could only communicate with one eye, in Julien Schnabel's Le scaphandre et le papillon (Bell Jar and the Butterfly). For non-art-film buffs he may be better remembered as the villain Dominic Green in Marc Foster's James Bond Quantum of Solace.

Now, he is appearing in his and his life partner Stephanie Cléau's adaptation of Georges Simenon's La chamber blue (Blue Room), alas, playing unfortunately for a week in New York. Almaric also directed it, with a Spartan and sure hand of a seasoned director, although he's a novice in directing.

Simenon's is a crime story, but, for Almaric, in an interview with Metro US, sees it as a "fragmented memory piece." For him, "it's one of the rare novels, maybe the only one, where Simenon has no linear storytelling," thereby allowing him artistic license in writing the script.

Running 75 minutes, La chamber blue is a fast paced narrative, shot in 20 days, with Almaric's effective use of flashbacks, as an tempt to retrieve involuntary memory.

La chamber blue's a hotel room in which Julien (Almaric) and his mistress Esther (Cléau) meet every Thursday, to make love.

It is a steamy affair sustained by Esther's strong sexual desire for Julien and Julien's ambivalent powerful drive for her.

We are not in a romance as is the wont of the standard, ordinary, and, at times, dreadful Hollywood romances. La chamber blue is a film about passion, a passion so overwhelming that Esther black widow like is willing to go to any length to snare her lover in a trap that has no escape.

Almaric and Cléau have captured Simenon's all-encompassing liking for sex. The opening scene staggers our eyes for it a shot of Esther's opening and closing of her legs, fully exposing her vagina. Shocking but brilliant, the shot brings to mind Corbet's famous painting Origin of the world, the image of which Almaric uses as source of obsession and lure that Esther has for Julien,. Love in Thursday afternoon captures the claustrophobic, solipsistic hothouse adventure that can only end in tragedy, but, to Esther's mind a satisfying conclusion for her compulsive desire and designs to have Julien for herself.

Christophe Beaucarne's skillfully cuts in and out of the film's narrative with incomplete portions of what is happening on the screen until the outcome of the story line in The Blue Room, as the dialog skips from the bed to questioning by le juge d'instruction—the magistrate in France responsible for conducting the investigative hearing that precedes a criminal trial.

As the clues are collected, we see the effect of Esther's obsession has on Julien, his marriage to Delphine (Léa Drucker), as well as the workings of the French judicial system. Not only that, but in spite of the disjointedness of the story, the narrative, in substance, is a good example of Gallic classicism. Julien is caught in the weave of Esther's passion that results in the murder of her husband and of Delphine. Like a rat in a maze, naïve victim that he is, under the questioning of the examining magistrate Diem (Laurent Poitrenaux), he is at sixes and sevens on how to respond as his dossier grows thicker and thicker with "proof of his guilt." As the Sieur des Grieux in Abbé Prévot's Manon Lescaut explains "my evil star already in the ascendant drawing me to my ruin—did not allow me to hesitate one moment," neither could Julien escape no matter how he tried from Esther's fatal attraction for him, and from the enticement of the blue room's bed. In the end, he is a beaten man, albeit it innocent of murder, but in the eyes of the court and evidence forever guilty. He and Esther are tried together. Each is found guilty as charged, and each is sentenced to life imprisonment. And in that finality of the rest of her life in perpetual seclusion, Esther triumphant, her eyes brighten as she smugly smiles, saying to her hapless lover that although separated by prison walls, he forever will be hers to share with no one. In the closing shots, as the spectators leave the courtroom, as the camera lens widens we see, irony or ironies, that what in the beginning was a blue room of lust and passion, in the end, it with its blue walls has turned into a blue room of justice. The acting is top of the form. The script compelling and intelligent in the way it adapted Simenon's sparse prose to the big screen, as well in the way it conveys his malaise and the atmosphere he created suggesting excessive emotions. For any student with at least two years of French, Simenon's prose is straightforward and standard enough for you to understand without looking at subtitles. It is a pity that a first-rate film like Le chamber bleue will play only in art houses, so, alas, is the statement on American public's taste for, and interest in, well-made foreign language films.

The film is disturbing, but is brilliantly and meticulously constructed, with flashbacks and snippets of action, arranged so that bit-by-bit the viewer comes to grasp what has taken place. One theme is the potential for tragic consequences of succumbing to sexual temptation (think "Fatal Attraction").

But above all, this is a story of a criminal justice system going horribly wrong. A weak individual, already reeling from a terrible tragedy, is further victimized by the machinations of the prosecution. With no allies and powerless to defend himself from what is happening to him, in the end his life is totally destroyed.

The Blue Room is beautifully acted and Mathieu Amalric delivers another of his cinematographic jewels. First off, I totally disagree with other reviewers claiming this movie to be an offshoot of Fatal Attraction. Second, you'll be watching the wrong movie if your intend is gazing over explicit sex scenes. This is not an erotic movie.

This being said - SPOILERS ALERT - Watch the movie first before you continue reading this review.

It's the story of two lovers falling into a diabolic trap. We come to know that Julien and Delphine grew up in the same town where they also attended the same school. Delphine was in love with Julien but he never noticed her other that she was taller than him. Eventually, after school, they both went their own ways. Delphine married a doctor but his mother always disapproved the marriage claiming Delphine to be after her sons' money. The mother lives in the same house of her son and Delphine. Delphine runs a pharmacy from that house as well. Julien is married has a daughter and a successful career. Years later....Julien is driving and sees Delphine on the side of the road struggling to replace the flat tire of her car with the spare. They instantly fall for each other.

Fast forward.

Many in town were aware of the affair and are now convinced that, for obvious reasons, the lovers eliminated their partners. The pretrial proceedings and tabloid lynching results in lawyers, courts and judges to be biased resulting in the two lovers being doomed by the time the trial starts. They clearly are resigned to the outcome of their ordeal but for different reasons. At this point Delphine is totally blinded by her romanticized love for Julien. As for Julien, he's aware that there's no way out and, therefore, indifferent to the trial. At this point, he's also convinced Delphine to be the perpetrator of the killings until, at the very end of the trial, he realizes who the real murderer is. Remember the testimony of the flamboyant red head ?

I started to watch the film after midnight and it was slow. I was sure I'd be asleep soon but the slow pace was matched with constant small pieces of the puzzle being put into place. The acting is good but also fairly monotone but since half the film deals with incidents in police custody and after some terrible deaths - you can see why the people would not be especially expressive.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

I like that I could not be sure who the murderer was. Some have said they are sure it is one person or the other but I would argue that you can't tell from the film.

Julien is often seen as the patsy in the film and I suspect he is. But I also would not put it past him to be the murderer esp seeing his anger when his wife was on the latter. But I think he loved his daughter too much to murder her mother.

Delphine, Julien's wife, is a victim but there is something else going on. Much of her behaviour seems typical distant couple but we wonder if she knows of the affair, she seems esp distant in some scenes esp her reasons for not smiling while on the ladder and esp when she reacts so strongly hearing of the death. Makes you wonder if there was not another affair going on.

Ester appears to be the person behind the murders as she clearly infatuated with Julien (although the dynamics are not there to explain why). Yet her correspondence with Julien is very casual. Four letters in five months? Cool to him in the drugstore. If nothing else when Julien bangs her head in the magistrate's office - you think that would stop any casual sense of love.

Nicholas' mother at one point could easily be the murderer. She had motive and opportunity. We see that at the end of the story very well. Some are sure she is.

It wouldn't explain Delphine but Nicholas could have known of the affair, and knowing he didn't have long to live, took his own life so that his wife and her lover would be blamed.

Not understanding the French legal system then it is difficult to understand how they were convicted.

There was mixed testimony on if Nicholas was even poisoned or not. So if you can't say for sure he was poisoned then was it murder?

The discussion of the letters was common yet they didn't exist. At one point his lawyer says "letters that she shays she wrote". There seemed to be much discussion on the interpretation of those yet they didn't exist anymore.

After the husband's death and it might or might not be murder then the murder of Delphine is just so obvious. It's clearly murder. It's going to be investigated. Since both of them seemed to feel that others knew of the affair esp the chamber maid then there was no way it wouldn't lead to an re-examination of the husband's death.

For Julien the only evidence was that he picked up some homemade jam for his wife, that she normally orders, and dropped it off at the house and returned to work.

The fact he was behind the building and was there for "minutes" is silly. We all sometimes get into our car and don't leave. We daydream, listen to a song on the radio, plan our next steps in the day. And if I were going to open and poison a bottle of jam then why would I do that anywhere near people. Also if it was a conspiracy then it is more likely Ester would have poisoned it at work at the drugstore.

We often say who has the most motive with any death. In this case the death of the husband and the wife link to a couple having an affair. An affair that seems to be over for months and could be easily proved with testimony of the hotel clerk etc. Yet it seems clear that two people benefited from the death of Nicolas - his wife and his sister. His sister who said in court that she thought her sister-in-law married only for the money. If "everyone" knew of the affair then so did the sister. In fact she would likely be the person told first. So her brother is dying and she will have to share the business with her sister-in-law who was cheating on her brother. So what better way to get back, and working in a drugstore would have the means, then to poison the brother (maybe with his agreement) and then since the jam was with her at the drugstore - the jam. It would be easy to know that only the wife ate that jam so you don't risk poisoning the husband or daughter.

In the end it is the sister who benefits all around.

Laden with awards and nominations (well deserved) Mathieu Amlaric is always a good bet, whether acting, directing, writing, or, as here, all three, he seldom lets you down and on the whole opts for interesting and/or unusual projects. Writing and acting with his real life partner (he was, at one time, married to another fine if somewhat neglected actress Jeanne Balibar) Stephanie Cleau, not exactly chopped liver if anyone asks you, he has elected as source material a non-linear novel by Georges Simenon, arguably the most adapted novelist of all time, and the partners have done an excellent job in both departments. The film's strength is in keeping you guessing whether you are watching an account of an intense affair - a la liaison pornographique with Nathalie Baye - a crime passionel, a courtroom drama or, as it turns out, all three. This is top of the line whichever way you look at it and the DVD is already on my list.