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La Chambre Bleue
The Blue Room
France 2014
produced by Paulo Branco for Alfama Films
directed by Mathieu Amalric
starring Mathieu Amalric, Léa Drucker, Stéphanie Cléau, Laurent Poitrenaux, Serge Bozon, Blutch, Mona Jaffart, Véronique Alain, Paul Kramer, Alain Fraitag, Christelle Pichon, Mustapha Abourachid, Olivier Mauvezin, Alexandre Patoyt, Henri Cherel, Tonio Chanca, Jean-Yves Cresenville, Nicolas Beliard, Laetitia Lebreton, Claude Picoron, Grégory Bouron, Joseph Ancel, Marie-Agnès Renard, Pierre Milon, Nelly Jousserand, Evelyne Ancel, Camille Perichon, Christian Elek, Thierry Lezeau, Arnaud Gaudin, Jean-Claude Daudin, Isabelle Carona, Jean Cherruault, Marc Garnier, Christine Milon, Erwan Barbier, Christophe Aubry, Carlos Fernandes, Patrick Brillet, Loic Simon, Silvia Da Silva, Julien Gayet, Béatrice Clement
screenplay by Mathieu Amalric, Stéphanie Cléau, based on the novel by Georges Simenon, music by Grégoire Hetzel
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Esther (Stéphanie Cléau), the wife of local pharmacist Nicolas
(Olivier Mauvezin), has always been in love with Julien (Mathieu Amalric),
Nicolas' classmate from way back - and finally she finds a way to meet him
alone in the woods and ... well, the two of them have a passionate affair,
and she'd like to see it evolve into something more, while he is actually
happily worried to Delphine (Léa Drucker) and has a daughter she loves.
And when they are almost caught by Nicolas one day, Julien decides to
ignore Esther from now on and focus on his family. This is when he starts
to receive letters, letters very possibly from Esther that are cryptic in
message at first, but then Nicolas dies, and the letters written might
suggest a murder ... and a few months later, Delphine is killed, too,
poisoned - and from here on Julien is taken into custody and every
step he has taken during his affair with Esther is scrutinized, and when
it's found out that Nicolas might have been poisoned, Esther is taken into
custody as well. But while custody and daily interrogations really break
Julien, Esther takes it much more on the cool side, even seems to enjoy
the time she and Julien spend in the interrogation room and later court
together ... La Chambre Bleue, which tells all of its
story in flashback, is an interestingly constructed and edited movie that
really keeps the viewer guessing throughout, and the screenplay is very
engaging as well. Add to this a first rate cast and a well-written
screenplay, and you come up with ... well, a film that in the end loses
it, leaving things too open - it's really a murder mystery without
resolution, without pay-off. Sure, it's still some kind of fun to come to
one's own conclusions afterwards, but on the other hand in this case it
also feels like something not thought through to the end. Pity, yet still
a good film.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
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Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
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