The Sleeping Beauty (2010)

After taking up Bluebeard in her previous movie, Ms. Breillat has turned to a more familiar tale, transforming a story of the universal woman into that of a specific girl, Anastasia (played first by Carla Besnainou and then by Julia Artamonov) and the world she makes from her imaginative longing.

The story of the adolescent princess cursed to fall into a deep sleep has been told by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and many others, including of course Walt Disney, who gave her a blond mane and not a single memorable song. Ms. Breillat’s version begins similarly to Perrault’s, with the birth of a princess. A wizened, cackling fairy greets the child by cursing her, declaring that she will die on her 16th birthday after being pricked by a spindle. Fortunately three good fairies flutter in, and with a few waves of their sparkling wands change fate: instead of dying, the princess will sleep. Then Ms. Breillat waves her own magic wand and takes the princess somewhere completely unexpected.

As she did in “Bluebeard” Ms. Breillat puts a child at the center of “The Sleeping Beauty,” almost as if she wanted to get her hands on the girl (who can be seen as a stand-in for all girls) before the fairy tale has its way with her. In her version of “Bluebeard” Ms. Breillat switches back and forth between two young sisters shivering along to the gruesome tale (one is reading it, and the other is listening, sometimes reluctantly) and two young women playing parts in a period version of the story. Here the figure of the girl is more active (or so it initially seems). Instead of reading the fairy tale she plays the central role: On her 6th (rather than 16th) birthday, Anastasia pricks her hand and then, surprisingly, she sets off.

The road she journeys is her own, though it’s truly Ms. Breillat’s and thus filled with amusements, digressions, and discussions about life and femininity. “I hated girls,” Anastasia says at one point, casting her scorn on some wee ballerinas. Happily, there are dancing and singing bandits to amuse her (and us), a few flashes of the knife and a snow queen who wavers in a darkened window as if through a dark pond. There is also a strange kingdom with petite, pale royals who could have been painted by Velàsquez if he had used candy colors. And while there are no princes to speak of, there are two pretty boys, Peter (Kerian Mayan) and Johan (David Chausse), one of whom kisses Anastasia and tells her plenty.

“The Sleeping Beauty” is driven by concepts rather than sumptuous illusionism. Its costumes, settings and artful boils are more convincing than those in “Bluebeard,” which had a cheap look that didn’t seem intentional and was even distracting. “The Sleeping Beauty” is more thoughtfully imagined and art-directed, though it’s too bad it wasn’t shot in film. Its digital images can look thin and don’t have the density and near-tactile quality that Ms. Breillat seems at times to seek, as her use of richly textured, sensuous material like fur and velvet suggests. Despite that, her ability to distill ideas into a single punctuating image — a woman’s torn stocking is here a ragged remnant of a sexual battle — remains powerfully in effect.

Given her explorations of female desire and masochism, as well as the fantasies and fallacies of heterosexual romantic love, it’s fitting that Ms. Breillat should be revisiting fairy tales. By reaching back to Perrault it’s as if she were examining the Rosetta stone, using fairy tales to decrypt the language of happily ever after. “Beauty and the Beast” (the title could work for some of her other films) will be the final chapter in a projected trilogy that I hope she expands: Andrew Lang collected 12 volumes of fairy tales, some ripe for her singular deconstructions. The pleasures of Ms. Breillat’s work are its commitment and seriousness and its raw, sometimes very funny perversity: she’s lets everything hang out, without apologies.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Catherine Breillat; edited by Pascale Chavance; set design by François-Renaud LaBarthe; costumes by Rose-Marie Melka; produced by Jean-François LePetit and Sylvette Frydman; released by Strand Releasing. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH : Carla Besnainou (Anastasia), Julia Artamonov (Anastasia, age 16), Kerian Mayan (Peter) and David Chausse (Johan).

Manohla DARGIS