Blue

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 2011)

I find it very difficult to write about Blue. So much has been said about it already, especially by Annette Insdorf (who provides a superb commentary on the Miramax DVD and a video essay on the new Criterion Blu-Ray), that anything I could put forward would be mere repetition. The truth is that as dense as the film is, it's also quite simple. It doesn't require great effort to decode it, certainly not as much as Veronique. Kieslowski's ideas -- about "liberté", grief, love, the need to not be completely free of connectedness to others -- are very close to the surface. But there is such elegance to its simplicity that it never feels obvious. Only in hindsight does one think "Of course that's how it should be done" because it is all done so perfectly.