In exile, Michael Powell made a quick stopover in Germany to make this filmed adaptation of the opera by Bela Bartok for West German television based on the French folktale of the eponymous Bluebeard who killed his series of wives. An hour long, it's one of Powell's least physically ambitious efforts in decades, but he makes the absolute most of his limited sets, focusing on his two performers as they belt out the libretto by Bela Balazs. He gets some great compositions, making this one of his best looking movies in a long time.
Bluebeard (Norman Foster) brings home his new wife Judit (Ana Raquel Satre) to his dark castle. Deeply in love with the man she's eloped with, having left behind her fiancé, Judit wants to do everything to improve Bluebeard's life within her power. That ends up including opening up the castle to light, and that must be done by opening seven locked doors which Bluebeard resists her opening.
This being an opera, the story isn't that complicated. Judith opens the doors, steadily getting the keys from Bluebeard and opening the doors, discovering hints of the truth of his previous wives. That truth gets revealed through a mixture of images like the almost surrealist vision of blood seeping from between the white tiles in one room to the use of red gels to create light in places like through jewels to having blood trail on the bottom of her white gown. Through this, she gains a red sash and some glittering armor around her waist (which disappears at a certain point, a choice I don't get unless it's meant to show her getting close to Bluebeard and then further away by discarding it, yeah, that's got to be it).
So, the rooms end up being that white tiled room (a torture chamber), to his treasure room, to an armory, to a garden, to a reveal of a model of his kingdom, and to a room with a pool of tears. As Judith discovers these things, her love cracks as it becomes obvious what's going on, but she insists on going forward towards the locked seventh room. There, she finds his previous three wives, one representing morning, the next representing noon, the third representing evening, with a fourth space for the one representing night, Judith.
Not a complicated plot, of course, and it all hinges on the performances from Foster and Satre along with Powell's staging. Apparently, the opera is often considered unstageable because of the lack of action, but it provides opportunity for Powell to go full German Expressionistic in his framing. He has these marvelous shots as Judith discovers her way through the castle, putting people in different parts of the composition, all framed by the primal architecture that reminded me of Welles' approach to Dunsinane Castle in Macbeth. And, of course, both Foster and Satre were professional opera singers, so I cannot fault them for performance. Although, since I don't speak German, I can only say that their voices were strong.
Really, there's not much to talk about, but I did really enjoy the experience as it played out. It looks really good, it sounds really good, and the story, while simple, plays out in this tragic direction that works quite well. It's worth a discovery.
