Movie: Three Colours: Blue (Trois couleurs: Bleu)

Dec 11, 2002
Movie Review

Actors: Juliette Binoche and others
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Producer: Marin Karmitz

Julie is the middle class wife of a famous composer with a child whose life is turned upside down when her husband and child are killed in a car crash whilst on holiday. This beautifully crafted and shot film--in a blue-tinted hue throughout--explores her attempts to make sense of her existence after this accident and give meaning to her existence. In an attempt to break free of her past she sells her house and moves to Paris to make a fresh beginning only to find that her past intrudes on her life in unexpected ways....

Using lots of single shots with long takes the director makes brilliant use of each scene; there is minimalist dialogue in this movie. The images are used instead to tell their own story and thus the viewer is left to work out the subtler meanings and message for themselves. For a large part of the film the camera gazes at and follows Juliette Binoche whose understated acting is a masterclass in subtlety. With gorgeous cinematography and a wonderful score this is one of the great modern films of European cinema and indeed the world.
Stunning.

When watching this one realizes how far ahead of the Subcontinent the Europeans are in terms of cinema. Indeed, very little in Hollywood either can match movie-making of such calibre. Magnificent. In French with English subtitles. Rated 15 in the UK and R in the USA.