Reel Look: 'Three Colors: Blue'

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2015)

"Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing. I don't want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps." Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1993 French drama film 'Three Colors: Blue' is one of three films from the Three Colors trilogy (all directed by Kieślowski, the other colors being White and Red), depicting the first color in the French flag, standing for liberty. But how does the first installment of this trilogy series play out? Let's take a look.
The film tells the story of a beautiful young woman named Julie (Juliette Binoche) who survives a car crash while tragically losing her musician husband and daughter and later on becomes haunted by grief. Filled with remorse and bitterness, she tries to shut out memories of the past and the world itself to melt into her own misery, at one point indulging herself in trying to swallow a capsule of pills, another by scraping her bare knuckles against a stone wall as she walks along, drawing blood. In a close-up shot for one scene in a café, we see her dipping a sugar cube in some coffee, showing us how once something pure can quickly become stained as her life had now become. Certain sounds amplify the story at certain and are key, allowing the film to breathe in a sense as would the incomplete piece her former husband wrote with its beats, tempos and musical nuances or as any other arrangements of composed music as well. Besides the many things being blue that are in this film, the primary focus are what we as the audience will either sense or feel throughout. Whenever Julie encounters a friend from the past, the screen fades to black and we hear a chord from her husband's unfinished symphony. Moments later the screen fades in again and we return to the scene at hand. Here we are to experience the emptiness of this character's psyche for a brief moment and her yearning to be set free from what has ensnared her being. We hear more than we see rather; her inner anguish writhing within followed by the sudden oomph from the full orchestra whenever it fades to black. This happens two or three times more in the film; fading to the darkness for an instant, the chord of a symphony and then fading back in. When something is repeated it is usually for emphasis, and in this particular scenario the director allows sound as well as sight to flourish in volumes. To the sound of a homeless street performer droning her deceased spouse's tune on a recorder to almost being able to smell the hot coffee in a local café, this picture is truly a film for the senses. 'Blue' weaves a mysterious orchestra of senses and emotions together all on its own to capture the essence of grief, loss and the uncertain bonds that must be mended regarding the present state and the future.