Blue (Three Colors Trilogy)

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: In recent cinematic memory, there are few films that study the subject of grief well or uniquely, though some, like "In the Bedroom," succeed on many levels. However, Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski is obviously a master at his craft and in his "Blue," he not only takes a look at grief, but also its internalization and the liberation of death, sides not often studied. In the opening sequence of the film, Julie Vignon de Courcy (Juliette Binoche) is with her famed composer husband and daughter in a car that crashes into a tree, killing all but Julie. She must learn to achieve catharsis post-accident, and Kieslowski observes her means of closure, utilizing various motifs (ie the blue pool) to emphasize how she superficially disregards pain yet wallows in it every day, whether she admits it or not. In an amazing scene, Julie finds a blue sucker that seems to remind her of either her husband or daughter, and she cannot scream, so she bites onto the sucker and chomps it, a sound that becomes more visceral than a scream, as it occurs within, her eyes focused on crunching and biting and nashing. Kieslowski effectively makes these subtle moments as profound as possible, presenting how liberty and closure can be achieved despite pain and further detailing the healing process along the way. Binoche contributes well with one of the greatest performances in cinematic history. She depicts Julie with nuance and strength, obviously willing to do whatever it took to make her character believably shaken yet willing to move on. Near the end of the film, when Julie meets her husband's mistress, she speaks with her and eventually gives her the house in which she formerly lived. Her husband's mistress says that she expected such generosity, that the husband spoke of Julie in such a positive way that her kindess is not surprising. By the end of the film, we are not surprised either. Binoche makes us believe.

Rating:
Summary: Connection lost...and found
Review: Juliette Binoche gives a startling performance here as a young woman whose husband and young daughter are both killed in a car crash that puts her in the hospital with not much more than some bruising. What's so powerful about this film is not what is said--or what is not said, but conveyed by the tremendous collaboration of actor and director--through gesture, through facial expression, through visual technique, through sound. One of Kieslowski's last films, this is light years away from earlier work like, for example, Blind Chance, and fearlessly probes the inner life of a grief-stricken woman.

As Binoche herself points out in an interview--one of the many great special features on this disk--the scene in which she crunches a lollipop (the sound is magnified with a contact mike to convey the smashing of the hard candy with her teeth) is far more effective than would be her screaming or sobbing. Kieslowski uses an interesting mix of visual and aural techniques to express the woman's guilt, grief, and, more than anything else, loss of desire to connect to others.

Earlier in the film, soon after the accident, she does forge a physical connection with her deceased husband's colleague, but it is a one-night stand that she needs to give back to her a sense of her body, nothing more. She quickly dismisses him the next day.

The theme of this film, it seems to me, is not whether a person can be altruistic or not, as stated by film critic Annette Insdorf in another special feature, but whether a person can actually make a connection to another person. Binoche's Julie (her character's name) rids herself of everything connected to her marriage after the accident, but because people, in oen way or another, impose themselves on her, she has no choice but to, ultimately reforge connections with those around her.

The title is reflected in the blue that permeates the film--in the water in which she swims, in a blue glass chandelier, in the lighting of many frames for which the cinematographer, also interviewed, indicates he used a subtle blue gel filter. Blue also conveys pornography, and even that is here, in the form of a neighbor of Julie's who works in the sex industry. And, of course, it refers to sadness.

But as well, blue is the color of the French flag correlated with liberty. Here, Kieslowski tells the tale of a woman liberated from her former life by tragic circumstances. It is this liberation, he says, (the implication is that it may be through tragic or non-tragic circumstances) that allows us to forge connections with others, connections that we might not otherwise make without being liberated.

A beautifully shot film, Blue is a unique marvel of cinema that should without question establish Kieslowski as one of the master filmmakers of the 20th century. It is truly unfortunate that he is no longer with us.

Very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Turn the light on, watch, and sleep
Review: If you think you’ve seen enough French films that suggest they are not for you then this film is to be avoided. Although it’s Polish written and directed, it takes on all the pretensions of French cinema, which is usually dull, and over bearing artistic self-indulgence. It’s devoid of all realism, acted by women that look like they came straight from a L’Oreal make-up commercial (Binoche is mesmerising if you like the china doll acting), acted by overtly sophisticated wimpy corduroy wearing men, pointless shagging (no nakedness here, must be the Polish Catholic background), and self consciously ‘artistic’.

The worst thing I can remember was that it was supposed to be about a composer who had written beautiful music, even the music was dull and too transparently ‘moving’. One of the sub plots involving the stripper was laughable and when you really would appreciate some real emotion involving Binoche actually acting (messy and weepy and a bit more drama generally!), then it was back to the same old dreamy close-ups.

Avoid like the plague if you want to uphold your respect for French culture


Rating:
Summary: Un concerto dans bleu par Kieslowski
Review: The first of Kryzysztof Kieslowski's colour-titled films based on the French tricoleur flag and also from the French Revolutionary concept of Liberte, Egalite, et Fraternite, is Bleu.

Julie de Courcy has survived an automobile accident that has taken the life of her husband, a renowned contemporary composer, and five year-old daughter Anna. Uncertain and abandoned, she is determined to make a new start for herself, leaving behind traces of the past, especially as it turns out she was the one writing the music for her husband's compositions. When I say survived, maybe I mean physically. Emotionally and spiritually, she may as well have been a casualty.

Leaving her large countryside mansion, she rents a spacious apartment in Paris. It is more than just her past she is leaving. She is also getting away from Olivier, a colleague of her late husband who has been in love with her all these years. However, despite her attempts to remain an anonymous nonentity, some loose threads from her past need to be tied up. Her husband Patrice was working on a concerto, the anthem for the European Union, which is Beethovenesque given some strong strings and a chorale. A young man who witnessed the accident tracks also tracks her down. And later, she learns that her husband had a mistress, and after learning from Olivier that he knew, decides to confront the woman. The past also goes deep into a fear for rats that infest her apartment.

Her attempt at noninvolvement also fails. When a neighbour tries to get her to sign a petition demanding the eviction of a tenant, a loose woman, Julie refuses saying it's not her business. Later, the woman, Lucille, arrives at Julie's flat with flowers, joyful that because not all the tenants signed, she is allowed to stay in the apartment building. Julie later discovers Lucille works at a strip club. When asked why she does it, Lucille says she likes it and everybody does. The garish though briefly seen club scenes are a diametric opposite to what Julie's trying to achieve through her gloomy solitude.

The theme of blue can be seen whenever Julie goes to the swimming pool. The pool's bottom is reflected blue from the lights, symbolizing Julie's attempt to reenergize herself in her newfound liberation. Yet the implication here is that despite achieving liberty, or being Blue, one does so at the cost of destroying one's soul. The liberty might as well be as hollow as the glass or crystal as those of the chandelier ornament Julie takes with her. Sure it's pretty, but so what? Is it spiritually or emotionally nourishing? Or the blue lollipop wrapped in the blue Julie crunches down forcefully. It seems equivalent to forcing liberty by the throat instead of making it a comfortable blanket.

As Julie, Juliette Binoche turns in what's one of her best roles ever alongside her roles in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The English Patient. She isn't a grieving widow, but one who has decided to go through her life and tying up her past in her own way. I give this 4.3 stars, rounded down and not a 5 because of Red, which I liked the best. But I like this deeper shade of blue. Benoit Regent gives credible support as her tempered yearner, Olivier. Charlotte Very also stands out as Lucille. And that's Emmanuelle Riva (Hiroshima Mon Amour) as Julie's senility-ridden mother.

The story was also written by famed Polish director Agnieszka Holland, the woman behind Europa Europa. Kieslowski followed this with Blanc and Rouge.


Rating:
Summary: The shadow of the pain!
Review: When a grieving French widow loses his husband -a famous composer- and his child , she tries to escape from the outer world and intends to sink in the anonymity , she will be hunted by all the compounds of the social world which surrounded his husband . You will be engaged for this absorbing telling from start to finish . Juliette Binoche won more than deservedly the Venice Film Festival Best Actress award. To my mind this is the best entry of the Trilogy of Kieslowski : Blue , White and Red based on the colors of French flag .
Besides this masterpiece film is included in my list of the ten top films of the nineties.


Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: Although "Red" remains my favorite installment in the Three Colors trilogy, "Blue" is wonderful as well. Juliette Binoche plays a grief stricken woman attempting to cope with the sudden death of her husband and daughter. She is luminous in the role, and has the remarkable ability to tell us exactly what she is thinking through her expressions rather than saying anything at all. Her desire to leave her old life behind and start anew, anonymous, in Paris, is the desire for freedom from the past (the theme of the film is liberty; for "Red," it's fraternity, and for "White," equality).

As she comes to terms with her grief, some of her actions may be questionable and might make the audience look unsympathetically at her character, but Binoche always seems to somehow make us understand why she is doing what she does.

The manner in which the color blue is used to bring mood and atmosphere to the film is also impressive. We see Julie swimming through a pool, the scene bathed in blues; there are also blue crystals, windows, balloons, a plethora of things blue, to underscore Julie's grief.

I highly recommend this film, for its superb performances and its consideration of a woman handling grief the best way she knows how.