Lady Blue Shanghai
Lady Blue Shanghai
| 16 May 2010 (USA)
Lady Blue Shanghai Trailers

A nameless woman (Marion Cotillard) enters her Shanghai hotel room to find a vintage record playing and a blue Dior purse that seems to come from nowhere. The security guards that search her room find nothing and ask if the bag belongs to an acquaintance. The question reveals to the woman a vision of her traveling to the Pearl Tower and old Shanghai in search of a lost lover who can't stay with her...

Reviews
Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Robert J. Maxwell Nothing much really happens in this fifteen-minute short by David Lynch. Yet I couldn't take my eyes off the nothing much.Another reviewer claims this is a dull movie but a fine commercial. If I hadn't been told it was a commercial for Lady Dior or Luis Vuitton or Sigfried Sassoon or Max Factor, I wouldn't have known.Yes, the bespoke handbag features prominently in the film, but not TOO prominently, and it functions in the film as a link between a phantasmagorical past love and the present circumstances of the curiously boffo Marion Cotillard. She enters her hotel room, a tango from the 1920s playing on the radio, and finds this glittering handbag on the floor of her room Shanghai and two Chinese house detectives appear and ask her about it. Then they stand motionless, speechless, while she spins out this tale of experiencing deja vu at lunch. The story involves her and a lover escaping a room in 1920s Shanghai and landing on a rooftop, at which point the lover says he can't be with her and fades away while handing her a blue flower.Back to the present. Under the eyes of the two statuesque investigators, she finally opens the bag. Guess what's in it.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) I really love Marion Cotillard and her being in a David Lynch movie could be truly something special, even if it only goes for 15 minutes. This is part of Cotillard's Dior campaign, where each film represents one color. This one about the color blue is actually the longest of them. However, there really wasn't that much focus on the color as I thought there would be. Obviously the rose in the end, then maybe the blue tower and the lights of the cameras, but that's pretty much it. I guess Lynch didn't really know how to use the color best, so he simply used the rose in the end.A woman comes to her hotel room, but music is running and somebody must have been there as there is an item in her room which doesn't belong there. The woman is worried and calls security only to tell them the story of her and her significant other. I have to say the mystery parts early on were solid, but when this turned into a film about Cotillard and her Asian friend, it really got worse. What a shame. I truly wanted this to be better. I have to say, I even enjoyed Cotillard's one minute comedy short "Forehead Tittaes" from 2010 even more. "Lady Blue Shanghai", not recommended.
MisterWhiplash Apparently, and maybe I'm thick-in-the-head, this David Lynch short film is a commercial for Lady Dior, which is basically a really fancy handbag. This isn't a surprise that Lynch would make a commercial - he has made several over the years, maybe as a means to get some of his ideas out there into the cinematic medium, and maybe, perhaps, to get some quick money. But this is a little different: this is a 16 minute film where it's really about a woman who goes to a hotel, a record is playing mysteriously in her room, and a handbag shines very brightly. She calls the hotel-help asking what is going on, and then tells a story of meeting a man before... or thinking she's met a man before, in Shanghai. The power of this short film is that a) I didn't have any real clue that it was a long-form commercial while watching it, and b) it carries the kind of unique mystery that Lynch unlocks with his approach to cinema - the cinematography (in this case digital video, with a more sophisticated eye than the experimentation of Inland Empire), the editing that emphasizes the human face and the enigmatic movement of characters in the frame, sound editing that is not-of-this world. I still am not quite sure what it's all about, or if it's really what it is in that handbag (I'm more-so reminded of the elusive nature of the blue box from Mulholland Drive), and I almost don't want to know, at least not until two or three more viewings. It also is a big asset that Cotillard, stunning in appearance and her quiet intensity, works so well here for him as his female-muse. Does it mean as much as his other short films? I'm still not sure about that either. Compared to some of the works on his Short Films of David Lynch or Best of DavidLynch.com DVDs, its not any kind of absurd thing he's dealing with here. It's like a splintered-in-his-mind romantic drama where love and loss and memory and not knowing converge into something one can look at and maybe recognize, or just feel. It's sublime work by a master of his self-made craft.
david I got very excited when I saw the new credit to David Lynch's filmography, but after seeing this short film I think the truth has to be said: This is not a film, it's a 16 minute commercial for Christian Dior. I'm still not sure what the product is, maybe it's just the brand. So, when criticizing this title one must do it on 2 different levels: as a commercial and then as a short film.As a commercial, this is pretty good. Everything is in place: the bag, the dress, the make up, and probably even the perfume, although this is one thing we cannot be certain of.As a short film, this is pretty dull. It seems that David Lynch has completely run out of ideas, and he once again makes a film about "a woman in trouble". Lynch's films of this decade were all about women in trouble. Beginning with "Mulholland Drive" and ending with this piece. Unfortunately, the music and atmosphere cannot hide the fact that Lynch is out of inspiration. This little short film adds nothing to what we've already seen from the man. It doesn't really matter if you don't watch this. Watch "Inland Empire" instead.I believe that Christian Dior just wanted to exploit poor Lynch's surreal approach to promote their products. I also believe that Lynch. lacking the opportunity to make another feature film, desperately needed the money. I can see no better reason for the making of this film.And all this I say as a David Lynch fan who thinks Lynch is one of the greatest filmmakers alive today.