Bluebeard

by Catherine Breillat

Catherine gives her great pleasure to terrify the living daylights out of her elder sister Marie-Anne by reading her the infamous tale “Contes de ma mère l’Oye” until the poor girl is so frightened she bursts into tears. Catherine derives just as much pleasure from taking part in re-enactments of the fairy-tale and eagerly slips into the role of Marie-Catherine, Bluebeard’s last wife. Although all of Bluebeard’s other wives are executed, she is the only one who escapes this fate, being the virgin princess about whose death Bluebeard prevaricates.
A variation of a popular figure based on the real life Gilles de Rais, a comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc and infamous child murderer.