Three Colors: Blue

Three Colors is a trilogy of three films directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. The three films: Three Colors: Blue, Three Colors: White and Three Colors: Red is the colors on the French flag. The story of each film is based on the French Revolutionary ideals: liberty, equality, fraternity. In the film Blue, a woman named Julie is the lone survivor in a car accident that killed her husband, a famous composer, and their young daughter. Julie attempts to start over and doesn’t want to deal with anything from her past. But she contacts her husband’s friend Oliver, who has feelings for her. The two of them end up sleeping together, but Julie no longer wants anything to do with him afterwards. Oliver wants to complete the unfinished composition Julie’s husband left. Later in the film, Julie discovers that her husband had a mistress that is pregnant with his child. She gives the house she’d lived in with her husband to the mistress and unborn child. We learn Julie composed some of her husband’s work. In the end, she decides to finish her husband’s piece, which will bring her the credit she deserved. She also goes back to Oliver and tries to work things out.

The main focus of this film is liberty. Julie is set free in the beginning of the film by losing her family. She didn’t want to be involved with anything or anyone no longer. She feels she will gain freedom by having nothing and losing everything. She slowly realizes this isn’t the way to go about things. She starts to allow people back into her life. The film later shows we can’t reach liberty if a person is free from all the ties to life.

I thought the film was very entertaining. The film had some interesting camera shots from the outset of the movie with the camera under the car. Another shot was when the camera was focuses on Julie’s eye in the hospital; you can see the doctor reflecting off her pupil. The classic music used throughout the film was very different and nice. I think the film is such a success due to Juliette Binoche, who played Julie. She made you feel the emptiness of Julie’s character. In the end, the film showed the search for liberty can be changed by our own will.