LA CHAMBRE BLEUE / THE BLUE ROOM (2014)

Discomforting/illicit love affair from author Georges Simenon, published in the ‘60s, adapted by, updated and starring Mathieu Amalric, is well observed, but falls crucially flat without the period social mores (and possibility of capital punishment/guillotine) that would have made its lethal outcome shocking at the time.  Contentedly married (with child) to Léa Drucker, Amalric has become lost in an obsessive affair with controlling, off-balanced Stéphanie Cléau; also married and something of a sadistic bedmate.  That’s the attraction.  But a pair of murders leave circumstantial evidence pointing toward both lovers, though the film definitely leans toward one.  Amalric no doubt realizes the relationship wouldn’t be nearly so scandalous nowadays: divorce far more accepted than sixty years ago, to say nothing of kinky sex practices.  So he, along with co-scripter Cléau, deconstruct the narrative into a Cubist design and keep the running time at a trim 76".  Plus full nudity we’d not have seen 60+ years ago to add some edge to the material, just not enough.  (Edge, not nudity!)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: It wasn’t until the middle of the third act, when we reach the courtroom, that similarities to Hitchcock’s intriguing if unsatisfying THE PARADINE CASE/'47 became apparent.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-paradine-case-1947.html