I was really surprised and flabbergasted to know that some people couldn't comprehend even the simplest of simplest of films, Of course , I don't claim that I can understand every damn frame this film maker throws at me. But how on earth do you want me to believe that you have not understood the simplest of that he non-chalantly shows on screen. Any person with slightest sense of emotion should by general principal understand and comprehend what he shows on screen. I cannot accept "feigning". This write up is a lampooning attempt for a film which I have selected for today is "Krzysztof Kieslowski's: Three Colours: Bleu".
Like all his films, this film deals with distinct human emotions which we all can relate to. Any reasonable human being who claims not to have felt or come across these emotions needs to look at his life seriously.
Like all his films, this film deals with distinct human emotions which we all can relate to. Any reasonable human being who claims not to have felt or come across these emotions needs to look at his life seriously.
This write up is not going to explain the plot , instead I will discuss about the brilliance of this genius. The story revolves around Julie who meets with a car accident. The accident kills her only daughter and her husband, who apparently is one of the biggest music composer of all times. The film deals with trials and tribulations of Julie and how she grapples with the sudden spate of changes in her life.
Julie is not the kind of heroine which we are used to seeing in some of the contrived women centric films , She is one among the thousands who is still trying to cope with her husbands death and of course her unfortunate change in fortunes.Now, before going into the details, I would like to state that, I am more concerned about the people who have seen the film and still couldn't understand why Krystoff is called one of the greatest and I would be really itching to call him THE greatest, and still debate on it.
The film is named blue for obvious reasons. The film has blue tone through out, but blue here signifies the memories Julie has about her past. please keep in mind this very interpretation as we move on.
Coming back to Julie, she is not a very headstrong woman who can stand up and come to terms with what has happened. It would be utterly illogical to show her as getting on with life after losing her celebrity husband and her only daughter. She obviously struggle's to come to term's with reality. Do you guys remember the first scene where a boy sits on the side of the road with wooden ball attached to a stick and he tries to fit the ball over the stick. The moment the ball fits the stick the car crashes, I am sure it was meant to be an allegory but I cannot comprehend as to what KK really tried to mean here?, That accidents happen by chance? or does he mean that it was meant to happen only when the ball fits over the stick, which obviously means FATE. It could have been anything and upto us to take it in which ever way we want to.
Coming back to the story, Julie is admitted to the hospital and more than the bodily pain which she suffers, the mental pain and heart ache seems to be getting the better of her. She distracts the Nurse on duty by breaking the glass window pane; As the nurse goes out to check the mess . She slips into the adjacent room(filled with medicines) and tries to consume random tablets in an effort to end her life. The nurse soon finds that out,and on seeing the nurse Julie spits it out. It was obviously the most weirdest situation to be in for Julie. She asks sorry for breaking the glass. Now this obviously should lead anyone to think that Julie thinks that breaking the glass was bigger vice than trying to end her life. Nurse quite quickly replies "the glass can be replaced". Just look at the way dialogues are written, if this is not a punch dialogue then what is?.
So, Julie recovers goes back to her country house with haunted memories (Again we can see shades of Blue). But after coming to a conclusion that ending her life wasn't the right way to go about her life, she becomes convinced that completely cutting her off from everyone and everything would do her more good, because she cannot even think of falling into an maze made of emotional strings. She sells her house, sells her antics except her daughter's Blue wall hanging made of Blue crystals and she wants to go to a place where no one knows her, no one can recognize her. Again her memories haunt her, she is not able to get over her husband and her love for her. What does she do? Calls her friend who apparently fell in love with her and makes love to him. The casual sex doesn't do any good to her rather it only rekindles the memories of her friend and her husband from time to time. She now goes away to Paris takes an apartment where there are no kids, furnishes her house with her daughters antique wall hanging. Every time, Julie has a ridiculous or a negative thought the blue shades turn to black. This cannot be a brain child of an average film maker at all.
Like memories Music too plays a vital part in the film, Since her husband was a famous musician it is obvious that music forms one of the best memories for Julie. She tries to destroy her music as well, throws all her notes she had previously written with her husband into garbage van. If you notice as she picks up the notes , the music is played in the back ground . The moment she throws it into the garbage truck the music fades out.
Well ironically later on in the film, you would find a solitary beggar playing the same tune again, and Julie asks the beggar from where he learnt it. He says that he composed it on his own. This is again a brilliant way of saying or rather a slap in the face of Julie that "You might have destroyed the paper having notes, but you cannot destroy your music". Life beckons her, her memories follow her everywhere she goes, but its Julie who cannot come to terms with her life. Haven't we come across such people?
You cannot even argue that beggar is not needed for the film, he is not the typical character we have most of the films there to fill up the screen space and time, the beggar makes her realize that she is important and so are her memories. The most striking part about the music in the film is as I said is as important as her memories themselves. A self proclaimed fan of Beethoven himself, KK gets in to the head of how a musician thinks about his music, how they write music. In the final sequence when Olivier and Julie try to finish the composition, Julie makes a lot of changes to the notes and she changes the instruments. Every time they run their hand through the notes , there is music in the back ground. Beethoven apparently thought about music as as he lost his hearing capabilities, because he could never hear it. I obviously didn't know it was directed at Beethoven but I am sure we can appreciate at how the music changes when Julie changes the instruments in her notes, from trumpet to piano to flute and so on.
She always prefer's to swim when no one is present, During the course of the journey to her new life in the apartment, she gets acquainted with a prostitute and make friends with her, both begin to share a good amount of closeness and suddenly Julie's heart is looking to confide into someone. One day, the girl sees Julie running off and she goes to the swimming pool to meet her,and she asks her if she was crying. Julie replies "no it was water". And suddenly group of children run and dive into the water.
It simply means people are forcefully starting to come into her lives again. the next scene is where she goes to meet her mom. This is vintage film making where there is a shot of Julie's mom watching TV, she is watching a man walking on a tight rope and Julie's face is reflected on the glass door which means Julie is also walking a tight rope.
The most important and the most unique scene is when she swims alone , IE , before she goes to meet her Mom. She tries to end her life by curling herself into a shape of a baby in the womb inside the water. After a few seconds, notwithstanding , she comes out, this means that she is reborn again. Again, I never understood the reborn angle of it, but you cannot possibly tell me that you never understood the purpose of that scene, which to mean that no matter how hard she tries; she is not able to cut herself off from the outer world.
I am sure this would induce movie enthusiasts in knowing more about this film maker, for those who claim to have not understood the movie, Allegories cannot get better than this. Decide for yourself.
UDHAV NAIG
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