Category: Kieslowski

We now reach the turning point of “Blue,” a collection of four scenes where Julie’s journey toward individualism and freedom meets various forms of resistance. It begins with her swimming alone in a stunning blue pool. Julie is again in that womb-like state, free in her exercise and meditation. But the symphony keeps haunting her….

Kieslowski stretches out the mystery a little longer. Julie goes to visit her mother and stands at the window of her home, observing her watching a man walk a tightrope. She stares for a few seconds and decides to walk off. The symphony begins playing in her head as she slowly walks off. It’s a…

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…

The last scene ends with Julie in a state of deep meditation. She’s faintly hearing the symphony in her head, a string section, but isn’t fighting it. She’s letting it guide her calmly into slumber. It’s impossible for me to convey the beauty of the scene, or any scene in the movie, it’s one of…

I cannot think of a more Montaigne-like film than the 2013 Krzysztof Kieślowski movie “Three Colors: Blue.” I have no idea if the Polish director had read Montaigne or even if he did, if he considered the similarities between this first film in his European unification trilogy and the essayist. But to me, this is…

The plot point about mice in Julie’s apartment feels like a short film within the film. It’s a microcosm of her beliefs and actions, one that faces off her innate fears with her maternal instincts. Julie returns home from the market, where she apparently bought nothing but a bag of oranges and eight liter bottles…

”Blue” opens in tragedy. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert called “Blue” an anti-tragedy in the way it subverts our expectations. While tragic flaws lead to the destruction of protagonists in the classical model, Julie has a different destiny. She cannot escape her innate kindness no matter how hard she tries to walk…

One of my other all-time favorite films is “Hiroshima mon amour,” the 1959 Alain Renais movie about a short-lived but intense love affair between a French actress, played by Emmanuel Riva, and a Japanese man, played by Eiji Okada. The story takes place in Hiroshima and is infused with memories of the atomic bomb destruction,…

As mentioned in the first essay, Kieslowski uses a motif of circles to indicate destiny in this film. It’s a metaphor he returned to frequently in his films, as Thomas Hibbs noted in this 2005 essay about him: Kieslowski specializes in the depiction of characters suffering a sort of dislocation, a loss of orientation, or…

One of the tropes of gangster films is the moment where the crime boss starts to see everything he’s built start to slip away. You could argue that every episode of “The Sopranos” is about examining that state. The fake world of power and safety begins to crumble. The ego cannot hold back the entropy….

This a beautifully shot, dramatic scene, framed by a thunderstorm. Olivier enters Julie’s house soaking wet. The room looks somewhat like a Van Gogh painting. She tells him to take it off, which Olivier interprets as his rain coat, she responds “all of it.” Olivier then proceeds to remove his clothes in the slowest manner…

“Three Colors: Blue” is a personal story, but it’s also possible to extrapolate it to a global, humanitarian story. Kieslowski conceived his trilogy as an homage to his new home country of France, but told through the prism of a reunited Europe. The freedom highlighted in the movie isn’t particular to Julie, it was felt…

This is the strangest scene in “Three Colors: Blue,” one necessary to move along elements of the plot, but one that also feels out of place with the style and tone of the rest of the film. Julie is asleep at home when she’s awoken by a call. Lucille pleads with Julie to please come…

This is my second attempt to write this essay. I completed a version of it and I thought I’d published it. But when I went to retrieve the URL so I could cross post it to Authory, it wasn’t in my list of posts. I found it in my trash, but when I clicked to…

We arrive at the two scenes that bring all of the strands of “Three Colors: Blue” together. But I don’t want to write about them, not the same way I usually do. Recounting the dialogue, trying to describe the camera shots and the actors’ reaction, it’s all just too small. It’s taken me multiple viewings…

I began this project by noting similarities between Montaigne and Julie, the protagonist of “Three Colors: Blue.” Both had experienced painful loss in their lives, and in reaction, they withdrew to a place of greater emotional control and comfort. But what I find interesting about the narrative arcs of them both is that liberty has…

I have noted before similarities between “Three Colors: Blue” and “Drive My Car.” Both movies include a highly mysterious character. But in the case of “Drive My Car,” it’s a character who dies early in the film. In “Blue,” it’s the protagonist herself who is a mystery. It’s a different type of mystery in this…

In a 1995 interview, Krzysztof Kieslowski described the stories that attract him this way: It comes from a deep-rooted conviction that if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things…

“Blue” is a film that starts off painful and difficult. It slowly becomes easier to watch throughout its runtime, reaching a conclusion that is powerful and joyous. We can bear to watch the early scenes only out of pity for Julie and what she must be experiencing. But Julie is fiercely immune to our pity….

Julie moves through the next section of the movie with the icy efficiency of Michael Corleone. The difference being that Michael acted with cunning to punish his enemies and consolidate his power. Julie acts ruthlessly to protect her state of mind—and on World Mental Health Day, shouldn’t we applaud this? Speaking of manipulation, this section…

I consider “Three Colors: Blue” to be a great film, and it’s a great film that includes a love story. But I don’t consider it to be a great love story. The problem is Olivier; He’s boring. There’s nothing exceptional about him. He’s portrayed by an average looking guy. The three things we know about…