Trois couleurs: Bleu

Plot synopsis:
Julie, wife of the famous composer Patrice de Courcy, must cope with the sudden death of her husband and daughter in an automobile accident she herself survives. While recovering in the hospital, Julie attempts suicide by overdose, but cannot swallow the pills. After being released from the hospital, Julie closes up the house she lived in with her family and takes an apartment in Paris without telling anyone, or keeping any clothing or objects from her old life, except for a chandelier of blue beads that presumably belonged to her daughter.For the remainder of the film, Julie disassociates herself from all past memories and distances herself from former friendships, as can be derived from a conversation she has with her mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and believes Julie is her own sister Marie-France. She also destroys the score for her late husband's last commissioned, though unfinished, work: a piece celebrating European unity, following the end of the cold war. Snatches of the music haunt her throughout the film.Julie reluctantly befriends Lucille, an exotic dancer who is having an affair with one of the neighbors and helps her when she needs moral support when the tennants in their apartment building want to evit her . Despite her desire to live anonymously and alone, life in Paris forces Julie to confront elements of her past that she would rather not face, including Olivier, a friend of the couple, also a composer and former assistant of Patrice's at the conservatory, who is in love with her, and the fact that she is suspected to be the true author of her late husband's music. Olivier appears in a TV interview announcing that he shall try to complete Patrice's commission, and Julie also discovers that her late husband was having an affair with a younger woman.While both trying to stop Olivier from completing the score and finding out who her husband's mistress was, Julie becomes more engaged despite her own efforts not to be. She tracks down Sandrine, Patrice's mistress, and finds out that she is carrying his child. Julie arranges for her to have her husband's house and recognition of his paternity for the child. This provokes her to begin a relationship with Olivier, and to resurrect her late husband's last composition, which has been changing according to her notes on Olivier's work. Olivier decides not to incorporate the changes suggested by Julie, stating that this piece is now his music and has ceased to be Patrice's. He says that she must either accept his composition with all its roughness or she must allow people to know the truth about her composition. She agrees on the grounds that the truth about her husband's music would not be revealed as her own work.In the final sequence, Julie and Olivier are having sex while the Unity of Europe piece is played (which features chorus and a solo soprano singing Saint Paul's 1 Corinthians 13 epistole in Greek), and images are seen of all the people Julie has affected by her actions as she faintly smiles through her tears.

Tags: mystery, psychedelic, humor, atmospheric, romantic

Review:
This film requires a commitment by the audience to really consider Kieslowski's implications, for he is telling us (throughout this trilogy) what he thinks makes a "good" person.
She plays an enigmatic woman,'Julie,' we're witness to her terrible loss(her husband who was a famous composer and her daughter died in a car crash)She is the survivor,not only of the accident,but of herself too.The film doesn't show us how her life was before the tragedy,but' Bleu' focuses on her personal journey to healing.
Also the meaning of the unfinished symphony of her husband is very profound (is connected with her grief and healing) The photography of the film and the beautiful and delicate face of Binoche contribute to the impact of  BLEU.
Kieslowski was one of the most talented directors, I really admired his 'Trois couleurs' trilogy but I think,'Bleu' was his most powerful film.10/10.
Due to the nature of the film, exposition in this case is not necessarily related to plot, but rather to the understanding of a human being.Kieslowski delves so deeply into the true nature of Julie (Juliette Binoche) and in such a remarkable way that by the end of the film we understand her utterly.
Showing Julie in anything but a state of solitude would be false; due to human nature Julie with Oliver would not be Julie, but rather a reflection of her true self which, although certainly interesting, pales in comparison to observing her silently struggle with the death of her husband and daughter alone.Kieslowski played with applying the documentary techniques, which he perfected in his early work, to the narrative form in The Dekalog with tremendous, although at times visually mundane, results.
While Kieslowski concentrates on showing the true nature of Julie through action, Idziak contributes by showing her through light and color.Trois Couleurs: Blue is an almost unmatched achievement in the history of cinema.
"Three Colors Blue" is the first part of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy "Blue" is set in France, "White" in Poland and "Red" in Switzerland, but all production was based in France Not only are the colors of the trilogy those of the French national flag; the original intention was meditation on the ideals of the French Revolution: freedom, equality and fraternity This suggests a political dimension to the work But though like most Polish filmmakers Kieslowski had his difficulties with the Polish Communist system, its collapse by the early 1990s meant that he was not only free to work where he pleased, but liberated from the necessity for his films to engage directly in the political process In "Three Colors Blue" Juliette Binoche plays a woman whose husband and daughter are killed in a car crash Overcome by melancholy, she progressively withdraws from life, depriving herself of possessions and refusing relationships, a state of mind conveyed in part by the director's subtle use of color blue But eventually she is able to accept the attentions of a lover and even to offer friendship to another woman who is pregnant with her husband's child Finally, she completes the piece of music which her husband has been commissioned to write The result is a work that has less in common with the Polish 'Cinema of moral concern' of the late 1970s than with the tradition of the mainstream European art cinema, in its concerns with alienation and the loss of feeling, countered by the transcendent power of love.
The sequence-of-shots that follow eerily draw one into the compelling story-telling style of Krzysztof Kieslowski, minimalist in its approach, with a world communicated without dialogue in the first five minutes of the film.
Either you'll feel that you've totally wasted your time and will probably not be able to sit through (the pivotal occurrence is over within the first five minutes of the film without a single world being spoken, and the rest of the film is essentially the protagonist's psychologically subjective journey) or you'll realize by the time you've reached the end that you'll revisit this film at various points in time, explore and read about it, discuss it with people you respect, and try to get closer to the essence of Kieslowski.
It is a quiet, personal movie that spends most of it's time with the main character played excellently by Juliette Binoche.The color blue is very evident in the film,and a fade to a simple blue screen is used to show times of deep emotion.
Although the characters are set in a specific time and place ( France just before the formation of the EU ) the focus on the personal journey of grief transcends the setting.I like the way this film changes from a story about a death to an affirmation to life.
I like the way that little things like mice in the apartment loom large in the thought of our main character, where as what others consider important such as finishing her husband's symphony seem very minor .It feels like diving deep through cold dark water to finally swim toward the light.
I enjoyed BLEU more than BLANC (which was an odd machismic entry in a trilogy mainly focusing on women) but not as much as ROUGE, which I feel is one of the finest, most beautiful, most well-done films I've ever seen.More specifically, BLEU's focus seems to be on the relationship of a woman's loss of the tactile manifestation of her husband's existance with the ligering notions of his life - especially his music, which pervades the entire film, interrupting at key moments with a blackout and short blast of the overture.
The picture has various subtle references about trilogy such as : At one point, we see Julie carrying a box which, as a close-up shows, has prominently written across it the word "blanco", Spanish for white; in the next shot we are looking at her from behind, and she pauses in the street as a man in blue passes her on her left and a woman in red passes her on her right , this is a reference to the structure of the Three Colours trilogy - blue, white, red, in that order, mirroring the French flag .
The picture was followed by ¨Trois Couleurs : Blanc¨ , a bittersweet comedic story spiced with lasting love and vengeance , in which a bewildered Polish hairdresser is divorced by his disdainful French spouse and returning to his family in Poland when he decides to fake his death ; being starred by July Delpy and Zamachowski , including cameos by Juliette Binoche and Florence Pernal .
And ¨Trois Couleurs : Rouge¨ starred by Irene Jacob , Jean Louis Trintignat , Frederique Feder and cameos by protagonists in the earlier film , Juliette Binoche and Benoit Regent ; ¨Red¨ is for fraternity in the Fench tricolor flag , dealing with emotional connections are mad between unlikely couples and director Kieslowski uses the ending to tie up loose ends ..
Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue is the first of the three part trilogy based on the three colors of the French flag, with the other two being Red and White.
It follows a story of a woman;Julie, played by Juliet Binoche dealing with the pain and her life after the accidental death of her husband and her daughter.
Kieslowski here too dives into these subjects in a fashionable way, playing around with some of the scenes to show the inner nature of the characters using beautiful cinematography and story telling techniques.
These two films were also quite depressing and cold, but the movie Blue seemed to engage me more--perhaps because I could easily see myself or someone I love in Binoche's position following the deaths of her family.At first, she decides the best way to cope is complete denial and repression--forget about the past by extinguishing all memories--including selling all her possessions and running from her past life.
The film tells about the new history of her life after the accident, in the meeting of symbolic objects, people and places.Probably I have quite of an enmity against slow-rhythm movies, and that's why I wasn't able to appreciate this at all.
This is one of the best movies I have ever seen.Not only for Juliette Binoche's excellent performance, but also for the delicate cinematography, the haunting music and the overall texture of immersion in the world of the young woman.
If you are after car chases, exploding jets and gun-toting macho muscle-men, then stop reading now, this is not for you.I enjoyed the other two films in the trilogy ("Three colours Red" and "Three Colours White"), but "...Blue" is easily the best.
If you are after car chases, exploding jets and gun-toting macho muscle-men, then stop reading now, this is not for you.I enjoyed the other two films in the trilogy ("Three colours Red" and "Three Colours White"), but "...Blue" is easily the best.
But the patient and reflective will be greatly rewarded by the films poetic images.The entire film is lite in blue tones,scored with classical music and dialogue is sparse.The best way to approach it is a painterly appreciation for moments where a sugar cube is slowly saturated with coffee, or of a hand being dragged along a stone wall.Juliet Binoche deservedly won the Venice Film Festival award for her understated performance.Recommended for the patient and cerebral..
Three Colours Blue is mainly centred around the character of Julie (Juliette Binoche) whose husband and daughter die at the beginning of the film in a car accident, which she survives.
In light of the many glowing reports on this film, it takes a little courage to admit that beyond a few impressive story telling techniques and some memorable uses of color, Blue was altogether unremarkable.
A woman as viewer of a movie (played by Binoche as placid observer) taking spontaneous shape around her, that pokes holes in herself and provokes questions; finally overcoming it by being pulled forward by what was left incomplete in it.A woman who has lost everything as the film begins, every anchor in her life violently removed in one swoop and she's now cast adrift.
Kieslowski kicks off his Three Colours Trilogy with this 'Blue' first chapter...The movie, featuring a somber mood, beautiful cinematography by Slawomir Idziak and some brilliantly haunting score by Zbigniew Preisner unfolds almost like a melancholy...with Juliette Binoche playing the central character of Julie.The premise deals with an accident claiming the lives of Julie's daughter and her composer husband.
Juliette Binoche stars as Julie Vignon, the wife of a famous composer who dies in a car crash, along with their daughter, throwing her entire life into total emotional chaos.
Throughout this time, she immerses herself in her sadness, just like that astonishingly blue swimming pool.Obviously, music is an extremely important part of the film, it takes us on an entirely separate journey through Julie's sadness and emotional development.
Was Julie only mourning the death of her husband and daughter, or was her grief further aggravated by the knowledge that she had failed as a wife and mother?Juliette Binoche is asked to do something in this film which is, in and of itself, a great challenge for any performer: she is directed to portray an uninteresting character, a woman who is so grieved and burdened by her past that she is barely able to keep the movie afloat.
But it is not only the imagery (Binoche blurry through window, staring vacantly somewhere as she experiences intimate relations for the first time since the accident), or ambient sound (the sudden clamor and echo of the indoor swimming pool as she comes up for air from under water) that reflects the nature of her psyche, but Preisner's haunting music that simultaneously takes us back to her husband and her tragedy, as much as towards her recovery of self as she engages her creative process.
She is a woman who has lived in the shadow of her husband, while yet participating in the creation of the very music he is famous for, and as the music enters the film, each time, it is her reflecting on and coming to terms with all that it represents to her, including, finally, the bridge to her salvation....This is not a typical Hollywood redemption tale handing us the standard prescription for such a tale of woe, no "how to reclaim your power as a woman course 101." This is a tale of truth, and we believe Binoche every time she makes a decision because we are not only privy to her experience, but fully involved in the process of transformation that becomes her liberation.I could go on and on through every scene like this, but it is better to watch and listen to the film several times by yourself.....
Where are the French, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, British, etc, movies?)Everything is marvellous, the music, the photograph, the history, the actressJuliette Binoche had the best work I had ever seen on her,  (and she was magnificent in Damage, The Lovers on the Bridge or The Unbearable Lightness of Being).
Juliette Binoche doesn't need to speak to show her soul storm.I highly recommend watching Blue, White and Red (observing the French flag colours order).When Krzysztof Kieslowski passed away after a second heart attack, the world lost one of the best film directors, but his masterpieces live on..
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.
Instead of saying which is the best and worst (though have often heard 'Red' cited best and 'White' the weakest, though all three films are generally very highly thought of) of Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colours" trilogy, it will just be said that all three films in the trilogy are must-watches in their own way.The first film in the trilogy 'Three Colours: Blue' serves as a very poignant exploration of grief and liberty (in the emotional sense), and to me it is one of the most moving and interesting depictions of grief and liberty in film.
Kieslowski's direction is thoughtful and never intrusive, and the intricate music score and the symbolic way it's utilised (representing Julie's struggles with isolation) is inspired, "Song for the Unification of Europe" is one of the most emotional tracks of music in any film seen by me recently.Story-wise, 'Three Colours: Blue' challenges in a way but also always engages, mainly because of how movingly and intensely it deals with the tragic story of Julie and its themes of grief and liberty.
A woman (Juliette Binoche) struggles to find a way to live her life after the death of her husband and child.Nothing against the plot, but this is a visual film.
I truly admired Krzysztof Kieslowski's approach with the film as filmmakers these days seem to try their best to cater towards the audience's expectations and resolve the character's story the way that is acceptable for them, which at times hurt the film's emotional and thematic impact.
Julie also engages herself in activities like swimming, which at first I thought was her way of distracting herself from the recurring thoughts of her family, as the film went on I started to see what Kieslowski was trying to create with those scenes, she is swimming in her sadness and at times drowning herself in it.
Just on scenes where the camera captures a close up of her face, she doesn't reveal much but it definitely does not seem hollow, there is something there but one has to look harder in order to obtain it.Blue is a great film that contains a wonderful and powerful performance from Juliette Binoche and a story that avoids from being predictable.
In this move we watch how the life of a woman changes when her husband and her child die and we can see how she tries to continue her life after all of that.I think that Juliette Binoche (Julie Vignon - de Courcy) who plays as this woman who lost everything makes one of her best interpretations and she is really great..
Julie chooses to live an isolated life, distances herself from human contact and digs herself into an introvert grieving process which cuts her of from her own existence.The main aspects in this visually exceptional and in-depth study of character from the early 1990s, is the main character's grief and the symbolic color blue.
The protagonist Julie (Juliette Binoche) has just lost her family (husband and daughter) in a car accident.
Juliette Binoche is impressively becoming in her role as a woman whose husband and child are killed in a car accident within the first five minutes of the movie.
"Blue" (Polish/French, 1993): Starring Juliette Binoche, and created by Krzysztof Kieslowski.
Ms. Binoche was able to allude to a faint smile at the last frame, the actor's contribution to the film after her understanding of the end of Anton Chekov's play "The seagull." Kieslowski retained the contribution of the literate and sensitive actor.Blue--one of the three colors of the French flag.
Juliette Binoche turns in an amazing performance as Julie, a woman who loses her husband and young girl in an auto accident that she survives.
Juliette Binoche gives a wonderful performance, though the movie is merely a showcase of the transition that her character goes through after her husband and daughter die in a car accident.
Kieślowski said that "Blue" looks at emotional, rather than political, freedom, as Juliette Binoche's widow Julie is no longer bound by family life but can't fully escape her past.
The film is about a woman named Julie who survives a car accident while her husband and daughter were killed.
This is the story of a woman Julie (Juliette Binoche) who loses her husband, a famous modern composer, and her daughter in a car crash.
"Blue 1993" is the story of the emotional self-reconstruction of a woman (Binoche) who survived a car crash which killed her husband and daughter.