A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Julien Gahyde (Mathieu Amalric) and Esther Despierre are former classmates and having an affair. Julien is married to Delphine with a daughter Suzanne. When Esther's pharmacist husband is found dead, Julien is brought in by the police for an interview. Then Delphine is found dead and the police suspects poisoning.I find this a muddled, confused, and flat telling of a possible murder mystery. The odd thing is that it's deliberately muddled, confused and flat. It's reworking the traditional crime drama. It's admirable but I don't think it works. The tension is all gone. There are no thrills. I don't think we even see the dead bodies. Mathieu Amalric is a great actor but the flat telling keeps the audience at a distance from the characters. There are moments where one gets glimpses something deeper in his character but he keeps the mask on for most of the movie. It's hard to say if the truth is revealed and that's kind of the point of the movie.

I loved this picture. Everything about it is beautifully done. Acting, editing, screen play, direction, music, all contribute to what is one of the best mysteries on screen that I've seen. But the picture defies classification as a mystery. It plows through the ambiguous details of a passionate affair, unfulfilled marriages, and police investigation that results in convictions of murder and life sentences. The details of the script have been well reported in the other user reviews, so i won't get into them here. My only comment is in the meaning of the film to me. What I came away with is a conclusion that the lovers were found guilty not for what they did, but for what they willed. Their guilt was in their desire, guilt enough for a moral conviction punished by the state with a life sentenced to live with their guilt.

The Blue Room is a French crime drama based on a novel of the same name by Georges Simenon and is directed by the lead actor, Mathieu Amalric. The film opens up in what is later revealed to be a flashback where the main character, Julien (played by Amalric), a married man, recalls his sexual experience with a woman (played by Stephanie Cleau) in a hotel room to the police. Julien is being accused of a crime that he doesn't apparently know anything about. As the film continues, and we go further and further into the story, we find out what actually did happen between this man and woman, as well as, the relationship between this man and his wife, eventually leading to a court case.The movie's most interesting elements are its story structure, told in flashback, and its use of its musical score. One of my favorite scenes concerns Julien trying to burn some papers and they slowly vanish into the darkness of the ocean. The way this scene is filmed and framed, being intentionally slow, made it very interesting from a filmmaking standpoint.The musical score is often bombastic, and scenes that aren't really meant to be dramatic carried a melodramatic theme. The score itself goes through different phases, from the very dramatic, to the mysterious, scary and even intimidating. The best use of the score in the film is during a court scene where we see people doing various things all at once. The background piano music fits the theme of this scene particularly well.This film has good acting from its lead actors and lovely cinematography. If you like stories of adultery and crime, you will not be disappointed, however I found that the film wasn't particularly memorable or anything special overall.

The Blue Room" (2014 release from France; 76 min.) brings the story of a man and a woman. As the movie opens, we hear the moans and whispers of a couple making love. Turns out to be Julie and Delphine. Pretty soon we come to understand that they are married, but not to each other. Delphine whispers to Julien: "Imagine what our days could be like, if we ran away". Little does she know what is to come... Just a few minutes into the movie, we then jump to the present day, where Julien is being interrogated at the police station, but we don't know why. To tell you more of the movie's plot would surely spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: first, this movie is based on the book of the same name by famed Belgian crime writer Georges Simeon (he died some 25 years ago). This prolific author has written dozens and dozens of crime novels, and many have been made into a movie. (I grew up in Belgium in the 70s, and he had the reputation of a giant.) Second, this movie is very much a labor of love for French actor Mathieu Amalric, who not only plays the lead role of Julien, but also directed the movie. Third, as the movie started out, I thought that this might be a "Fatal Attraction"-type movie, but as it turns out this is very much a police and court drama. A huge chunk of the movie plays out in the interrogations at the police station, even though it is interwoven with plenty of flashbacks as to what exactly happened. For those of you not familiar with the continental European criminal justice system, you will be in for a few extra surprises, as the differences with the American criminal justice system are profound. Also noteworthy is the very unusual screen ratio (almost but not quite 1:1). Last but not least, there is an outstanding orchestral score to the movie, composed by Gregoire Hetzel, and I only wish it was used more extensively in the movie (there are long sections where no score is used)."The Blue Room" opened without any pre-release hype or fanfare at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati in late October/early November (it only played a week). The early evening screening where I saw this at was not well attended (less than 10 people) but frankly I was surprised there were even that many people for this. Bottom line: I thought that "The Blue Room" was a nice change of pace from the crime dramas that we are used to in the US. If you like French movies with lots of talking and not much 'action' per se, I'd readily recommend you check this out.