La Femme en bleu (1973)
Directed by Michel Deville

Film Review

With enchanting performances from Michel Piccoli and Léa Massari (who make a surprisingly effective screen couple) and an evocative, seemingly unceasing score (which includes some of Schubert's most haunting pieces), La Femme en bleu makes a strangely compelling drama about love, life and death.  Despite some effective use of comedy, the film is an intensely melancholic work, relying heavily on its poignant cinematography to tell an enigmatic tale of hopeless, tragic yearning.

The film works as well as it does because of its unusual narrative style, which switches unpredictably between dream, memory and real events.  This, along with Piccoli's presence in the film, invites a direct comparison with Claude Sautet's 1969 film, Les Choses de la vie, which is similar both in tone and style.  Director Michel Deville goes further than Sautet in his abstract portrayal, although his use of comedy is perhaps the thing which most sets the two films apart.  It is an unsettling cinematic form which prefigures Deville's later works, notably his remarkable 1988 film, La Lectrice.

Deville managed to persuade former French film star Simone Simon to come out of retirement for a small (but hugely memorable) part in this film.

Film Synopsis

Pierre, a music critic in his forties, has enjoyed many liaisons with the opposite sex but somehow his ideal partner has always managed to elude him - until the day he catches a glimpse of a mysterious woman dressed in blue.  From this moment, Pierre becomes obsessed with finding the woman and getting to know her, but his frantic search for her proves in vain.  With the help of his best friend Edmond, he scours the city's night clubs, cinemas and restaurants - all in vain.  The woman in blue, a metaphor for everything that Pierre has ever wanted in life, remains forever beyond his grasp.

Aurélie, Pierre's present mistress, suffers most from the musicologist's latest fanatical obsession.  She is used to him pursuing other women but now things seem very different.  She knows that unless she fights to keep her lover he will leave her forever, and the only way she can do this is to join him in his manic quest.  As Aurélie anticipated, Pierre eventually grows tired of searching for the elusive woman of his dreams and in the end he gives up and withdraws to the country with his faithful mistress.  Just when Pierre appears to be cured of his destructive mania his fantasy begins to overtake him once more.  He returns to Paris and takes an overdose of tablets, knowing that by giving up his search for the woman in blue he has killed his dream...