Following the unexpected death of their father, Anne and Marie-Catherine are cast from boarding school and sent back to their mother. With no money for dowry, younger sister Marie-Catherine agrees to wed the wealthy but notorious Lord Bluebeard, whose previous wives have all suspiciously disappeared. Will Marie-Catherine be next? Both surprisingly straightforward and slyly subversive, Catherine Breillat's retelling of Charles Perrault's infamous fable teases out the class and gender conflicts present in the original, reminding us that the best fairy tales just might be the darkest. Using parallel storylines, Breillat intercuts the fairy tale itself with scenes set in the 1950s, where a young girl scares her older sister by reading the sinister tale.

DIR/SCR Catherine Breillat, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault; PROD Sylvette Frydman, Jean-François Lepetit. France, 2009, color, 80 min. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Monday, November 9, 7:05; Wednesday, November 11, 7:00

AFI Member passes will be accepted.

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