Three Colours: Blue [DVD] [1993]

Julie de Courcy (Juliette Binoche) and her family are in a car accident when their brakes fail. Julie is injured, but her composer husband and their daughter die. She can't bring herself to commit suicide, but neither can she just go home and get over it. So instead she leaves her palatial house in the country after a night with her husband's old friend Olivier (Benoît Régent), who has been in love with her for years.

Julie arrives in Paris with nothing but a blue cut-glass lampshade, takes back her maiden name, rents an apartment, and tries to leave her old life behind. Though she says she doesn't want love or friends (because they are "traps"), she befriends a promiscuous young woman and is pulled back to Olivier when he starts to finish her husband's unfinished work. In turn, Olivier reveals to her the side of her husband she never knew -- the other woman he loved.

The Colors trilogy is based on the colors of the French flag: Blue, white and red, standing respectively for liberty, equality, and fraternity. In this, Julie is unconsciously seeking liberty from her past life and her grief. This grief is shown beyond mere tears and unhappiness. She rakes her knuckles over a rough wall, rips off a strand off the hanging lampshade, as little ways of showing her inner turmoil. At the same time, the revelations about Julie's husband raises questions about their marriage and about Julie herself.

The powerful music celebrating the EU pops up periodically, often when Julie experiences strong emotion. At times, the screen goes dark, and the overwhelming, soaring symphony is all you can detect. And as Kieslowski does in "White" and "Red," this film is sprinkled with color and symbolism. Blue crops up in little dancing bars of light on Julie's face, in her clothing, a swimming pool, in rain-slicked windows, a misty blue morning and a lollipop.

This may be Binoche's best performance. Her expressive eyes and subtle facial expressions convey every tormented or peaceful emotion that Julie feels. One of the best shots in the entire movie is the final one, in which we see Julie, unhappy and tearful, slowly starting to smile. (She also is shown weeping underwater, something I've never seen before) Régent seems rather colorless beside Binoche's reverberating performance, but his quiet, sweet Olivier is an underrated character.

A harrowing, beautiful and ultimately romantic film, "Blue" brims over with pathos and beautiful direction. A true piece of cinematic art.

Blue is in essence a very simple tale - a woman loses her husband and daughter and finds it almost impossible to cope. To do so she cuts herself off from the world around her - her liberty/freedom is complete. The question is - is liberty enough? Can any human live fully without the contact of others? During one scene in the film Binoche pays a visit on her mother. In the background a television shows a high wire act. If the man slips, no one will catch him. Kieslowski seems to be saying 'you can be alone, but no one can save you then'.

There is a great deal more to all of his films than can be absorbed in a single viewing. Watch the movie for the outstanding performances by Binoche and Charlotte Very as her neighbour Lucille and the beautifully combination of Idziak's probing, luminescent cinematography and Zbigniew Preisner's searching music. As ever with Kieslowski,less is more, silence speaks volumes and you are,in the end,never alone.

Utterly compelling.