THE BLUE ROOM
Directed by Mathieu Amalric
Written by Mathieu Amalric, Stephanie Cleau-based on the novel by Georges Simenon
Starring Mathieu Amalric, Stephanie Cleau, Lea Drucker
THE BLUE ROOM tells the story of two philanderers (Amalric and Cleau) who despite spending only a few weeks worth of stolen afternoons together manage to allow their passion to set them on a course of action that will destroy lives including their own.
THE BLUE ROOM is about sexual desire gone berserk, but the scenes devoted to their passion feel too brief and too coolly directed to really get at the heart of it. Amalric uses the signifier of a bit lip and the blood it draws to get the passion across but it still feels underplayed. Instead we spend most of the films 70 some minutes seeing Amalric being interrogated by a police detective, going over the same ground repeatedly.
The movie feels both too short and too long, especially with the interrogation given so much time and the affair so little. And at the end, I was still not sure if justice was served or thwarted. Too many questions went unanswered. A bit of a disappointment but still worth seeing.
Patti Abbott
