Review of Three Colors: Blue (1993) by Ahmedaiman1999 — 24 May 2021

Two tempting routes instantly manifest themselves for us after losing a loved one: wallowing in sadness forever and detaching oneself from life while being very much alive. Neither of them makes a logical sense. Logic aside, however, neither can spare us such an inexorable phase or get us out of it miraculously. Julie seems to have veered into the latter route in order to evade slipping down the abyss of the first. But grief must take its natural course, and suppressing it would result in truly dire circumstances at their worst scenario would be being imprisoned by depression, shrouding us metaphorically until a shroud takes its place quite literally.

"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.".

Kieślowski incessantly tries to save her from such fate and draw her back to life once again. His camera lingers in extreme close-ups on Juliette Binoche's features to draw out of them a smidgen of the sadness Julie does her utmost to bury inside herself. Later on as Julie keeps pushing grief away in her quest of severing herself from the past, she finds herself drawn back to it as memories surround her everywhere and no matter hard she tries to escape them. When she returns back to her home for the first time after the accident that cost the lives of her husband (a renowned music composer) and her daughter, she asks the gardener if he has emptied the "blue" bedroom, which implies her trying of getting rid of the past. She goes upstairs only to find a "blue"-beaded chandelier, that's likely belonged to her daughter, hanging over her, just like her memories of her daughter. Julie's journey of liberating herself, in one sense, from her past life becomes impeded with reminders of her two dears she lost. Furthermore, Julie's incomplete grief begets anger and irritability that put her mental state at stake. And as memories relentlessly haunt her, she ends up surrendering to them, literally having her head under (blue)water. However, blue gradually begins to mutate its symbolic significance as liberation takes on a totally different definition in Julie's mind. It's here where Zbigniew Preisner's score blossoms into a salvaging tool. There's one scene, in particular, that I found fascinating where Julie and her husband's colleague trying to complete her husband's unfinished manuscript. The shot is pulled out of focus until it becomes almost utterly blurred, forcing the viewer to hear the music playing inside of their heads as they orchestrate parts of it. It's still a liberation of the past, but one of letting go of it while maintaining, nay cherishing its memories instead of eliminating them. A liberation that thrives on a catharsis for all of Julie's repressed painful feelings, bringing forth her deepest sobs and setting her free.