Liberté

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 a film that examines a core issue of Montaigne, that of solitude, in a highly poetic, thoughtful manner.

Kieślowski intended “Blue” to be an examination of liberty, with his second film White to look at equality and the third Red to focus on fraternity. But what makes the trilogy interesting is that all three films looked at the dark side of these three French democratic virtues. Instead of seeing liberty purely as a matter of freedom, the film details the isolation and loss of human connection endemic to pure liberty.

The setup is purely tragic—a car crash that leads to the death of a man, a famous French composer who was commissioned to write a symphony for the unification of Europe, and his child daughter. The lone survivor of the crash is Julie, played in a remarkable understated manner by my all-time favorite actress, Juliette Binoche.

Heartbroken over the loss (with her daughter’s death hitting her hardest) Julie contemplates suicide, but cannot go through with it. She lays in a near comatose state in a hospital, is eventually released, and then proceeds with icy efficiency to cut off her connection to everything in her past life.

We are never brought into Julie’s thought processes, but they are not difficult to ascertain. Julie feels overwhelmed with loss contemplating her lost loved ones, so she acts to rid herself of all reminders of the past, to begin as a completely new person, without any of her past possessions, lingering friendships or artifacts of the life that was destroyed in the crash.

In these early scenes, Julie’s mission feels cold, almost inhuman. She is ruthless in turning away people who care about her and who wish to carry on the work of her late husband. I remember having discussions with many film goers at the time who did not like the film as much as others in the trilogy because they found it too cold. But I believe is a serious misinterpretation of the movie. It is only by seeing Julie succeed so efficiently early in the film in her mission to disconnect herself that we discover the film’s heart. And I honestly believe that the last 20 minutes of this film are moving beyond description—maybe the best movie ending I’ve ever seen.

Throughout the movie, Julie focuses on lots of little details in her life meant to demonstrate that she has shifted the center of reality purely to herself, that she no longer cares about other people or events in the world. This is the most Montaigne-like aspect of the film. What makes this such a powerful cinematic essay is that Julie isn’t permitted to get away with it. We continually see her being pulled back into the world and the people around her.

As I’ve mentioned in other places, “Blue” also bears a strong resemblance to “Drive My Car.” Both are films about mourning and loss. Both involves protagonists who take extreme measures to shut the world out. And both are, eventually and inevitably, powerful stories about the necessity of connection and the healing power of collaborative friendship. While this movie sits comfortably in its own trilogy, I think viewers might take more away from a double feature with “Drive My Car.” They are beautiful complements to each other.

So, onward to my new project. This is not an especially long film, a little over 100 minutes in length, but I’ll take my time going through it both because there’s so much detail in every scene, but also because I love the movie so much and look forward to spending as much time with it as possible.