Just perfect...

I'll tell you why so serious

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This film is about the most raw of emotions, grief from great loss. In an opening scene, the brakes go out on a car, ridden in by Juiette Binoche, the result of which is the loss of her composer husband and her young daughter. We now focus on her attempted recovery which begins with a suicide attempt. Once out of the hospital, she wallows in grief. She obviously has the funds to go on which allows her to drop out of her previous world. Her husband had been respected all over the world for his work, but it is implied that she had as much to do with the work as he did. One of her husband's associates (who has loved her and sleeps with her one evening) wants to finish the master's final composition. She destroyed a copy earlier, but it resurfaced as a copy in his desk at his workplace. As she tries to get direction, she finds out deep secrets that were kept. She has a relationship with an exotic dancer in a sex club. There are rather obvious scenes of her swimming alone, going into the depths of the water and coming out. This is quite an intense, but superbly quiet film.

"Trois couleurs: Bleu" ("Blue" in English) was the first entry in Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colors trilogy. Named after the colors on France's flag, the trilogy focuses on stories involving France's national motto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Kieślowski said that "Blue" looks at emotional, rather than political, freedom, as Juliette Binoche's widow Julie is no longer bound by family life but can't fully escape her past. This continuing connection is embodied in the lamp of blue beads, and in the footage of bungee jumping (in which the cords become more apparent as the movie progresses, symbolizing evidence of a link to the past). Most importantly, there is the music: much like how music consists not of a single note but of harmony with other notes, Julie cannot stay isolated from the rest of the world. Thus it's an anti-tragedy: Julie's attempt to erase her past call into question whether love and freedom can coexist.This is the first Kieślowski movie that I've seen, and I'm really impressed. His use of scenery and colors to tell the story mirrors Stanley Kubrick's style of filmmaking. Juliette Binoche won both a Golden Globe and a César for her performance, as well as an award at the Venice Film Festival (all well deserved). As for the director, I hope to see the other entries in Kieślowski's Three Colors trilogy, as well as his other works. It's too bad that he retired after finishing the trilogy and then died of a heart attack.

This is the first of Krzysztof Kieślowski's colors trilogy. Blue is Liberty. Julie de Courcy (Juliette Binoche) survives a car crash which killed her husband Patrice and her daughter. Patrice is a famous composer who was commissioned to produce a piece for European unity. Julie tries to commit suicide and then escape from the glare of her former life. She befriends exotic dancer Lucille. An old friend Olivier is also a composer and suspects the composition is actually Julie's. Patrice had a mistress. Julie has to break out of her darkness. Kieślowski uses everything including color, silence, music and most importantly Binoche infusing this with meaning. This is very much an art-house film and may not be for everyone. The quietness does lower the intensity. It's slow and meticulous. There isn't much of a plot. It's all about Julie's darkness and the reveal that can break through.

A very engaging drama.Three Colours: Blue is the first in director Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy. The story of a woman who suffers an immense tragedy and how she deals with it. Very real, human and relatable. You can see how she meticulously, and sometimes even callously, discards her old life, starts again and tries to close herself off from reminders of her past. A great study in human reaction to tragedy.Doesn't have a very satisfactory ending, however. After all the careful build-up, the ending feels rushed and too open-ended. I kept waiting for a moment of clarity that never came.Solid performance by Juliette Binoche in the lead role.