Betty Blue

Jean-Jacques Beineix, France, 1986, 121 minutes

Betty is a passionate, aimless wanderer, without focus for her deep emotional energy. Then she finds Zorg, the film's narrator, and sees genius in his unpublished novel. She forces him to abandon his complacency and, having burned down their bungalow and wrecked Zorg's employer's car, they venture out into the real world to find pleasure and tragedy. Beatrice Dalle is the sultry, seductive Betty and Jean-Hughes Anglade, Zorg, lovers each trying to save themselves through the other but locked into two mutually exclusive fantasies. Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue has all the right ingredients: explicit sex (and plenty of it), luscious coloured cinematography married to irrational Gallic behaviour and a tragic storyline, and all packaged as high art - the result, a guaranteed market and a phenomenal success for a glossy pretentious and largely meaningless film. Indeed, its most obvious subtext, the (male) writer's realisation through the agency of the (crazy) female's tragedy - even to the extent of capitalising on said tragedy through cathartic novelisation - is at best extremely questionable.

Review by Allan Smithee
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993-94

Zorg (Jean-Hughes Anglade) and Betty (Beatrice Dalle) are passionate lovers, painting beach houses by day and making love by night. When Betty discovers Zorg's forgotten unpublished novel, she declares him a genius and they head for the city to find fame and fortune but end up selling pianos in a mountain village instead. There she attempts suicide, and Zorg realises what everyone's been telling him from the start - Betty's a few sheep short in the top paddock Those little things like trashing his employer's car, burning their bungalow down and mutilating publishers, that he didn't notice cos she was bonking his brains out. So he terminates the relationship.

Forget the Director's Cut (although Betty's descent into madness is still too abrupt), this original version is far more charming and satistying, and hides the film's faults much better than the longer boring version. But it's still glossy trash masquerading as art. Beineix's origins in advertising are too apparent in the lack of content and coherence, but the explicit sex (apparently they actually did it), the fantastic photography and the tragic storyline guarantees a full cinema.

Just in case you think this is a sexploitation movie then rest assured; we see a fair amount of Jean-Hughes Anglade's widget, even though he's hung like a dormouse.

Review by Stephen Cox
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95