Cycle index

The Bluebeard

Blaubart

dir. Krzysztof Zanussi / West Germany, Switzerland 1983 / 92’

subtitles: Polish and English

retrospective: Krzysztof Zanussi A Plane from Budapest, Anxiety, Attestation, Behind the Wall, Camouflage, Cement and Words, Face to Face, Family Life, Girl and Uhlan, Hipothesis, Holden, Illumination, Imperative, In Full Gallop, Inventory, Krzysztof Zanussi – Essential Conversations, Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, Long Conversation with a Bird, Mountains at Dusk, Persona non grata, Revisit, Spiral, Stop Thief, Students, The Balance, The Bluebeard, The Catamount Killing, The Constant Factor, The Contract, The Death of a Provincial, The Lady with the Ermine, The Lame Devil, The Power of Evil, The Role, The Roof, The Silent Touch, The Structure of Crystal, The Tram to Heaven, The Unapproachable, The Year of Quiet Sun, Time That Passed, Umbrella, Ways in the Night, Wherever You Are, With a Warm Heart, A Woman’s Business, Deceptive Charm Section index

Cast

Vadim Glona, Karin Baal, Vera Tschechowa, Ingrid Resch, Maja Komorowska, Margarethe von Trotta, Barbara Lass, Jan Biczycki, Eugeniusz Priwieziencew

Film description

In 1983 I couldn't consider making a poignant film in Poland and frankly speaking I was not sure if I could make any film at all - that's the director's explanation for why he accepted the offer to make a film adaptation of a novella by Max Frisch. Zanussi called Bluebeard an exercise in calligraphy. He remembers it as a serious challenge because the Swiss author had never agreed to an adaptation of his work before. It was a success - not only did Frisch accept the screenplay, but he even agreed to appear in the film. The somewhat perverse story of a man involved in the death of one of his six ex-wives is full of eroticism, playing with reality and imagination, mixing seriousness and irony.

For Polish audiences it is one of the most mysterious films by Zanussi, as it is barely known in the director's homeland. It was never screened at cinemas in Poland and was shown on TV only in 1988. Even printed collections of screenplays do not include Bluebeard, although the script was published in Germany soon after the film's premiere. Hence the opportunity to see it is even more valuable.

Mirella Napolska