FILM REVIEW of …. Beineix, J. J. (1986) Betty Blue
By Tim Francis
This French Art House movie from the director Jean-Jacques Beineix is a passionate love story developing slowly .into an engrossing tale.
The camera work is simple and refreshing with long , slowly tracked shots. Winning a Bafta and Oscar nomination for best foreign film of 1986. With a Cesar Award for best poster.
The opening shot of the couple making love on the bed is completely voyeuristic in the way the camera inches forward . Incorporating natural sounds with the abandonment of the moment, hinting at the passion already developed.
Betty (Beatrice Dalle) is a desperate , sexually aggressive free-spirited recent lover of Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) who is a casual introverted undiscovered writer.
Together their relationship takes us on a journey from the beautiful beach houses with it’s haunting saxophone depicting their passionate romance …..to city life with two emerging friends and their happiness is interwoven with Betty’s mentally disturbed frightening actions and Zorg is left revealing a depth of emotion where we begin to understand the story through his eyes......they eventually take over a piano store and try to settle in life as a business couple and Betty becomes pregnant ( hence the French title of ‘37 degrees Le Matin’…the normal body temperature of a pregnant female ). The beauty and tragedy of this brazen baby-doll who keeps on having dangerous emotional episodes , leads us into a grisly and shocking finale.
The impact this humorous and cool film has embellishes a feeling of the peeping tom within us . Betty, mostly scantily clad throughout and Zorg’s full frontals keep us engrossed voyeuristically. This reviewer was left with the ever growing appreciation of French Cinema and indeed ,their way of life.
Footnote:
The comparison from the title and the ‘Betty Blue’ of the 1950’s peeping tom favourite pin-up gal seems evident enough and sufficiently so for the famous Welsh rock band to name themselves ‘Betty Blue’ after watching the film,.. only to change it to the more recognisable ..’Manic Street Preachers’.
Tim Francis.
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