About emotional freedom and learning to cope

Rating: Null/10 (14 December 2018)

The first film in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy, named after the colours of the French flag and loosely themed after the values of French Revolution. With this one obviously named Blue and dealing with the value of freedom.
The story follows a young woman, a recently widowed Julie (Juliette Binoche), who lost both her husband and daughter in a car accident. She struggles to cope with this enormous emotional gut punch by distancing herself from her past, from her old life, from her memories. She tries to free herself from her anguish and sorrow.
The story is not a bad one and the film is certainly well-acted, but I have to admit that this whole trilogy shines for me because of its technical aspects. The camerawork is superb, the acting is really nice and the locations are evocative. But mainly it's the use of colour. Shocking, I know. This film is so blue, and in a really inventive way that supports the story. Blue is a melancholic colour, it's a deep colour. But it's also a refreshing colour, a cool, calming colour. And that's all reflected in the film.
I'd call Blue a good gateway film into more artistic films. It has a plot, it has characters, it has an arc, but a lot of the subtext is only implied and has to reasoned out from the colours, from the score, from the imagery. Not a huge film, but intellectually pleasing nonetheless.