Trois Couleurs: Bleu is the first film in a trilogy which is called Trois Couleurs (Three Colours), the trilogy was directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, a polish director which died a long time ago. Now, I would like to say that I know all of his filmography but that would be a lie, I only know him and of his trilogy because it is availabe on Mubi -a cool streaming service that I really recommend- and I watched the whole trilogy actually, but the film that resonated the most with me was Trois Couleurs: Bleu.
Trois Couleurs: Bleu is about Julie, a french woman who had a happy life with her husband and daughter, until the family suffers a car accident, her husband and daughter die in that accident, leaving Julie alone, this experience causes a big trauma on Julie, she falls into a deep depression and in the process, she isolates herself from the world, excluding her friends and all of her beloved ones, Julie has to go through a very painful catharsis process in order to fix herself somehow.
I have no words to describe how beautiful and subtle the photography in this film is, every sequence, every shot, every interaction is simply beautiful. The color blue is not a decoration in the name, since it is a color that we will see recurrently during the movie, mostly on Julie's face or on some object in her apartment, or in some space that she frequents. Personally, the first time I watched this movie, I interpreted the blue color as a subtle way of showing the catharsis that Julie is going through, but investigating a little more in depth I found out that I was wrong and that the presence of the blue color has a completely different context, which I would like to return to later.
The acting is amazing, specially, the acting of the protagonist, it is not easy to be an actor and have to give your audience that feeling of heartbreaking and sadness, Julie achieves this by far, from every interaction she has, from the way she talks to others, and her expressions with a lost or empty look, one can truly believe that it is not an acting, that she is really destroyed inside. I love the fact that all of this is achieved thanks to her acting and the way she expresses herself through the movie, it is not necessary for her to talk that much to understand her feelings or tears to make us feel bad, just watching her is enough to understand how hard her situation is.
As I mentioned before, Julie detaches herself from the world in its entirety, she isolates herself from all the people around her, sometimes using them to fill some inner void she has and then discarding them, I think this is a central theme in the movie, social connections. Through the film, as much as Julie has isolated herself from society, she meets other people who help her during her healing journey, no matter how hard she tried to delete everyone else from her life. Julie describes the other people, her family or friends, a kind of trap in which she cant fall again, thinking that their presence gives them the permission to destroy her.
Social isolation is never a good thing, even if you seek that freedom that you long for in loneliness, you should not deprive yourself of the contact of other people for a long time, of course, being alone from time to time is important, but isolation in a hard moment will make things more complicated. As much as we don't like the idea, we live in a connected world, we are not alone and depending on others is not a bad thing, social connections are part of our day to day, and wanting to get rid of it is not the most optimal thing in a moment of catharsis.
As I mentioned before, the color blue is important in the movie, since it is really present in many sequences. I initially thought that the presence of the color blue was defined in a feeling of catharsis, but it turns out that what it represents is freedom. I don't know much about the subject so I could be wrong, but the director made this trilogy based on the colors of the French flag, since apart from Bleu (Blue), the other two films are named Trois Couleurs: Blanc (White) and Trois Coulerus: Rouge (Red), the French flag has blue white and red as its colors, from what I understand, the director had his interpretation of the colors of the French flag, in this case, blue represents liberty, white represents equality and red fraternity, in many cases, the French flag is associated with what I have just described, following the motto of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité, a motto whose origin comes from the French revolution, in this case, Bleu is a film whose main theme is liberty or freedom (Liberté).
Please, don't pay much attention to what I said, when you search for the meaning of the French flag, other kinds of things come up, but also, it is said that the flag can be interpreted with the motto that I mentioned, besides, Bleu does give a meaning of freedom, it is a subject that although I investigated I am not entirely sure, so I would be very grateful if someone corrected me if I am wrong.
When Julie is deprived of her family through the accident, it could be said that she was no longer tied to anything, so she was really free to do what she wanted, she had absolute freedom, a freedom that you can only achieve through loneliness or isolation, since, as I see it, we are who we really are in solitude with ourselves, however, that freedom must be sacrificed sometimes in order to love and be loved.
Although the theme of freedom, in this context, should be something political because of the French flag or motto, the director wanted to take all that motto to a more human meaning. I say this because the movie was released some time after the Fall of the Iron Curtain, this Iron Curtain was a barrier that kept Europe separated in two, after the fall, the director made this trilogy with other people from Europe, attesting to the new times that were approaching for the continent at that time. All of this can be reflected through the soundtrack, at a certain point in the movie this theme plays, which is called Song For The Unification Of Europe
Despite being a somewhat old film, it has aged like wine, it has a slow pacing, usual in these French films, but, it is something necessary, every second of the film counts. As for the soundtrack, I enjoyed it, it is composed by classical music by its own I think. I mentioned before that, of the entire trilogy, this seems to me the best one, I can't help but say that one of the best sections of Bleu it is definitely its photography. If you have a subscription on Mubi you'd do well to check it out, the entire trilogy is there.
All of the screenshots were taken by me