Critics reviews

The self-consciousness of the film’s imagery, far from being disjointed from the story, often serves to set the emotional tone for a scene.

At once the viewer is at the centre of Betty and Zorg’s relationship as the camera lingers on them during a lengthy and graphic sex scene. This now feels non-gratuitous, just honest, as Beineix demonstrates filmmaking with a real beating heart at its centre.

Betty’s episodic crackups, which start with arson, proceed to assault by fork and comb, and culminate in operatic self-mutilation, feel not so much explosive as exhausting. But curvy, ripe Dalle, only 21 at the time and in her first screen role, completely commits to the part, and was dubbed “the new Bardot.”

Much celebrated for its fraught sexuality, rampant nudity and frothy, stylised direction... Betty Blue is a marvel of sheer verve over any kind of sensible substance. It is a teenage dream of curvy, indolent sirens fuelling stalled creativity with tip-top shagging and near dementia.

Reviews have been written debating the movie's view of madness, of feminism, of the travail of the artist. They all miss the point. "Betty Blue" is a movie about Beatrice Dalle's boobs and behind, and everything else is just what happens in between the scenes where she displays them.

Jean-Jacques Beineix, the creator of "Betty Blue," seems to be a strange kind of idiot savant -- all esthetic sense and no brains. All that means, though, is that the audience has to make an imaginative leap to get down to Beineix's level. The reward is an extraordinarily sensual movie with its own silly integrity.

Love is blind in "Betty Blue." Girl meets boy, makes major whoopee, romps through France, then puts an eye out. It's a sort of Oedipus Sex, a devastating combination of French farce and Greek tragedy from "Diva" director Jean-Jacques Beineix.

Too often, ''Betty Blue'' has the posturing good looks of a fashion spread and nothing more. Miss Dalle is lovely, but the emotions she displays seem correspondingly shallow. What Mr. Anglade does is more like acting, but it, too, is little more than skin-deep.

Director Jean-Jacques Beineix has adapted a novel by Philippe Djian, considered an enfant terrible of the new literary generation. It’s another feverish tale of amour fou.

Perhaps what is least satisfying about Beineix’ effort is its implied theme—that women are mere muses to be addled, suffocated, and sacrificed to revitalize the imaginations of men