Three Colours: Blue - Krzysztof Kieslowski (1993)

Julie Vignon: Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing. I don't want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps.

"You can't make music with just one note...you need the harmony of the whole scale for that," Julie Vignon (charmingly played by Juliette Binoche) realizes with surprise over the course of 98 minutes of the film, the first of the three films (Blue, White, Red) that make up Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy.

The film cycle "Three Colors" is a generous metaphor in which Blue constitutes an anti-tragedy, White an anti-comedy, and Red an anti-idyll. All three are the colors of the French flag and each has one of the ideals adopted by this nation as its imperative: Liberty (Blue), Equality (White), and Fraternity (Red).

So, about freedom...but not the freedom from confinement, nor those of speech, expression, opinion, or other civic issues; nope, Krzysztof Kieslowski tells us about a spiritual liberation through the total rupture. Julie barely survives a tragic accident in which her husband and their five-year-old daughter die. As her attempt to leave a life that seems doomed fails (a suicide attempt), the heroine chooses the next option, that of abandoning everything that ties her to what was. Everything: home, personal belongings, friends, intrigues, acquaintances, habits, enemies... absolutely everything. You like the idea because, let's be honest: you have thought about it too in times when things weren't going as they should, or even when they had completely stalled. How many times have you asked yourself: What if I could reset my life? What if I could start everything from scratch again...? What if I woke up tomorrow in another country where I don't know anyone and nobody knows me?

But Kieslowski discovers through Julie, and we do too, that such freedom is not possible; that canceling the past and its fantasies is illusory and unattainable; that the meanders of destiny work implacably and cannot be short-circuited. Because Three Colors: Blue is one of those films that gain identity and build themselves on the set from momentary circumstances (especially thanks to a flexible script, but above all to Binoche's dedication, here in her best career performance).

With a style strongly marked by Andrzej Wajda (with whom he shares the same formation, the famous National Film School in Łodź) the cinematography of the film is top-notch:

- from the obsessive attention to the blue color that discreetly punctuates all the delicate moments of the plot (and which ends up identifying with the forgetfulness from which the heroine tries to detach herself), to the alternative angles full of unusualness;

- from the soundtrack that must support an important part of the narrative (music playing the second main role of the production) to the subtleties of Juliette Binoche's acting composition;

- from the highly refined technique of choosing frames to the vibrant sequences that stir powerful emotions, such as the one in which the shadow of a finger caresses the little girl's coffin on a television screen...

There are sorrows for which there are no tears that fit. This is what Julie experiences. In perhaps the most beautiful scene of the film, returning from the hospital, she inspects the house she lived in as a space she observes for the first time... her state of weightlessness is interrupted by muffled sobs coming from the kitchen. It is the maid and her grief in the face of the misfortune that has befallen the former home... the following:

Julie: Why are you crying?

Housekeeper: Because you can't...

Go watch "Blue", a dissertation on emotional freedom in the attempt of becoming. It's a superb film, unique in the finesse and consistency of its symbols, the language used, and the complexity of its message...