Sumptous visual palate saves exploration of mourning process from total mediocrity

Rating: 5/10 (16 September 2014)

This is the first film in Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski's Trois couleurs trilogy based on the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The high point is Sławomir Idziak's sumptuous cinematography and when all is said and done, 'Blue' is a fine film to look at. But in terms of story, it's also a slow-moving affair and if you don't have a lot of patience, you might find the narrative an exercise in unfortunate ennui.
Juliette Binoche plays 'Julie' whose famous composer husband and young daughter are killed in a car accident at the beginning of the film. Totally shattered, Julie first attempts suicide but can't go through with it. Instead, she decides to withdraw from life by putting up her home for sale, place her Alzheimer's afflicted mother in a nursing home and renting an apartment in Paris without telling any of her friends and family. She also destroys her husband's unfinished musical score (commissioned to promote European unity), which she may have actually composed herself.
The main question we're left with (as robot-like Julie makes her way through her self-imposed life in exile) is, when will she come out of it? Along the way, however, she's determined to prove that she can go through life with all her emotions deadened, as a sort of impotent protest against the cruel fate bestowed upon her. Hence, when Olivier, a former composer colleague who's in love with her, finally finds out where she's moved to, Julie has sex with him and then cruelly tells him never to see her again. And then there's all those scenes swimming in the pool—we hear the booming sound of the unfinished symphony impinging on Julie's consciousness. This obviously signifies her inability to repress her emotions completely.
Kieślowski argues that in the mourning process there comes a point where demands for kindness in ordinary life must intrude on the mourner's determination to maintain their inflexible stance of anger and denial. Case in point: Julie answering exotic dancer's Lucille's call for help when her father shows up at the strip club. Or Julie deciding not to hold a grudge against Sandrine, her husband's mistress, by allowing her and the new baby, to live in her family's home. While Julie probably is still not overjoyed by Sandrine's actions, this is her way of 'moving on', and also acknowledging that she must help the baby, which belongs not only to Sandrine, but to her late husband as well.
Julie finally breaks out of her shell by getting involved with Olivier. At the denouement, Olivier gives Julie the ultimatum about the unfinished score (a copy turns up preserved)—he'll complete it with all its 'roughness' or Julie will take over completely, but admit to current and past authorship. But Julie's decision is ambiguous in terms of who takes credit—what's important is that she's involved in collaborating and is no longer alarmingly self-absorbed. As the presumed completed symphony plays, we see shots of the various individuals who Julie touched, in spite of her self-defeating but thankful short-term exile. And the housekeeper who earlier cries for Julie because she's unable to mourn, can now rest assured that Julie is finally beginning to cry herself.
Part of the 'Blue' problem is that there is no external conflict going on. The conflict exists solely in Julie's mind. The characters that impinge upon her are not developed in great detail—they exist as a catalyst for Julie's recovery. There's also the natural tendency to feel sympathy for a character that has experienced an unfathomable tragedy. Nonetheless, Julie's recovery is rather predictable and I'm not convinced that explorations of the mourning process in itself, should really be the subject of a full-length feature film. On the other hand, if you're a patient film goer, the film's visual palate, is worth the price of admission.