''Kékszakállú'' () is a 2016 Argentine

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Gastón Solnicki Gastón Solnicki (born 1978) is an Argentine film director. Coming from an immigrant Jewish family, he studied photography at International Center of Photography, as well as film directing at Tisch School of the Arts in New York.Bérénice Reyna ...

.Diana Sanchez,
Kékszakállú
" Toronto International Film Festival, 19 September 2016. It was screened in the

Orizzonti ''Orizzonti'' ( 'Horizons') is a section of the Venice Film Festival's official selection. It runs as a parallel section to the main competition for the Golden Lion The Golden Lion () is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Fe ...

section at the

73rd Venice International Film Festival The 73rd annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 31 August to 10 September, 2016, at Venice Lido in Italy. English filmmaker Sam Mendes was the jury president of the main competition. Italian actress Sonia Bergamasco hosted th ...

. It is Solnicki's first narrative feature, after his previous documentary films ''Süden'' and ''Papirosen''. The film chronicles the coming-of-age of a group of female teenagers in Argentina, not quite knowing what to do with their future. It is only very loosely inspired by ''

Bluebeard's Castle ''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' (, literally ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act Symbolism (movement), Symbolist opera by composer Béla Bartók to a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs. Based on the French folk legen ...

'', the Hungarian one-act opera by

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

and

Béla Balázs Béla Balázs (; 4 August 1884 – 17 May 1949), born Herbert Béla Bauer, was a Hungarian film critic, aesthetician, writer and poet of Jewish heritage. He was a proponent of formalist film theory. Career Balázs was the son of Simon Bauer a ...

. Solnicki said that he wanted to attain the "atmosphere and horror" of the original opera, yet with his own characters.

Plot

The film observes a group of adolescent girls—unnamed to the audience—on the brink of adulthood. They are first seen vacationing in

Punta del Este Punta del Este () is a seaside city and peninsula on the Atlantic Coast in the Maldonado Department of southeastern Uruguay. Starting as a small town, Punta del Este grew to become a resort for the Latin and North American jet set and tourists. T ...

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, before returning home to

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, Argentina. The main character (Laila Maltz) still lives with her father, and after some hesitation takes up a small-time job in his

Styrofoam Styrofoam is a brand of closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam (XPS), manufactured to provide continuous building insulation board used in walls, roofs, and foundations as thermal insulation and as a water barrier. This material is light blue in ...

factory. She is reluctant to engage with the work, however, and spends most of her time in the company of her friends, as well as searching for an appropriate field of study. The friends are also evaluating different educational options, and at one point eat an

octopus An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...

dinner together. After an

ellipsis The ellipsis (, plural ellipses; from , , ), rendered , alternatively described as suspension points/dots, points/periods of ellipsis, or ellipsis points, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot,. According to Toner it is difficult to establish when t ...

in the narrative, the film sees Laila abandoning her homestead on a ferry heading for

Chuy Chuy () is a city in the extreme east of Uruguay, in the Rocha Department, northeast of Montevideo. It lies on the border with Brazil, separated from its Brazilian sister town of Chuí only by a shared avenue that serves as the border, and by the ...

, Uruguay.

Production

The film is a very loose adaptation of the one-act opera ''

'' () by the Hungarian composer

, with the ''

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

'' adapted by

from the folktale "

Bluebeard "Bluebeard" ( ) is a French Folklore, folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in . The tale is about a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives an ...

" by 17th-century French writer

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , , ; 12 January 162816 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his ...

. ''Kékszakállú'' has few similarities with the narrative of the opera, as Solnicki was not interested in "matching" the characters or "imitating the story", preferring rather to find the "cinematic materials" in the opera. Solnicki commended Bartók's audacity in adapting the structure of Perrault's tale to his own needs, noting that in Bartók's version, Bluebeard is "not the monster but the victim." Solnicki has also cited as an influence

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), better known as Fritz Lang (), was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety Obituari ...

's ''noir''-adaptation of the folktale '' Secret Beyond the Door...'' (1948), which the main character watches in the beginning of the film. He used a 40 mm lens and direct sound to capture the ambience of the character's existence, maintaining that it was "

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), better known as John Ford, was an American film director and producer. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and w ...

’s favorite lens for shooting a man on a horse".Nicolas Rapold,
Venice Interview
" ''

Film Comment ''Film Comment'' is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, ''Film ...

'', 5 October 2016.

Reception

The film was released to critical acclaim at the

. It was in particular praised for its minimalist and elliptical approach to narrative, and comparisons were made to other Argentine directors, such as

Lucrecia Martel Lucrecia Martel (born December 14, 1966) is an Argentine film director, screenwriter, and producer whose feature films have frequented Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, and many other international film festivals. Film scholar Paul Julian Smith ...

, Martín Rejtman and

Lisandro Alonso Lisandro Alonso (born 2 June 1975) is an Argentine film director and screenwriter. He has directed six feature-length films and a short film since 2001 and is loosely associated with the ''New Argentine Cinema'' movement. His film '' La libertad ...

.Forrest Cardamenis,
#NYFF 2016: ''Kékszakállú''
" ''

Brooklyn Magazine ''Brooklyn Magazine'' is an online news magazine, focusing on "New York’s most populous borough through the lens of culture, community, commerce, arts and leisure." The company was bought by Michael Bassik and the website was launched in Decemb ...

'', 3 October 2016. * José Teodoro,
Kékszakállú (Gastón Solnicki, Argentina)
" ''Cinema Scope'' (69), 2016. * Jeff Reichert,
Curiouser and Curiouser
" ''Reverse Shot'', 21 July 2017.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kekszakallu 2016 films 2016 drama films Argentine coming-of-age drama films 2010s Spanish-language films Films based on works by Charles Perrault 2010s Argentine films Films set in Punta del Este Films shot in Punta del Este