Mouffetard

Not much happens in the first scene of Julie’s freedom, which makes it a perfect opportunity to detail why I love this character so much. It’s not just that Julie embraces an ethos of radical freedom, it’s the way she goes about expressing that freedom that I find so appealling.

I’m at an age where I know people who have gone into early retirement and embraced the life they’d most like to live. I have no issue with anyone choosing to step away from lives of toil, but I find the shallow choices these men take so disappointing. To them, freedom consists of moving into a condo in a place like South Florida or, even worse, Las Vegas, spending their days golfing or going out to nightclubs.

Julie enters her new life via the Metro, and emerges into the Mouffetard Market, one of my favorite places in Paris. It’s in the 5th arrondissement, the Latin Quarter, and is surrounded with incredible 12th century buildings. The market itself is a wonder as well, a vibrant bloom of color and fragrance.

Julie goes to an apartment broker and asks for something she can move into right away. She tells the agent that she does nothing for a living and gives no direction about the right apartment for her beyond “no children.” The broker says he has a place, but it will take awhile to get ready for move in, it needs new paint and carpet. Julie asks to see it and if she could move in right away.

I need to point out that behind the agent, there are rows of blue binders with little metal holes, circles, on the spines. My interpretation is that where she will move in is a matter of fate, Julie has no real choice in the matter. The tension between acts of faith and a desire for radical freedom is omnipresent in “Three Colors: Blue.”

Julie is carrying nothing but a single box with the word “Blanco” on it, written in blue. This is, perhaps, a foreshadow of the second film in the series, “White,” and there will be several more soon. When she gets to the apartment, Julie finds the brightest, most beautiful room I’ve ever seen, opens the box and affixes the blue chandelier right in the middle.

It’s a hilarious conceit of the film that a woman as beautifully dressed and pulled together as Julie can leave everything behind but one box and not miss a beat in her life. Just a small example: this is a woman with a serious skin care routine, why rebuy it all from scratch? It adds a bit to the fable-like feel of the story, we can’t take this all at realistic face value.

As she stares at the light reflecting off the blue chandelier, we know that Julie is thinking once more of her daughter. She tightly clutches some of the beads to inflict some pain, her way of centering herself and returning to her personal experience.

At this point in the film, we have roughly traversed as much time and terrain as in the prologue of “Drive My Car,” except here the movie only has about an hour of runtime left. Kieslowski is an incredibly economical director, he does not waste a second of his audience’s time.

Julie has transitioned to a new life in an incredible apartment, in one of the most beautiful places in the world. If given the same opportunity for radical freedom, I feel like I would make similar choices. We shall soon see just how possible such a new life is for Julie or anyone with a compassionate heart.