Three Colors: Blue

Pain, tragedy, mourning, mental and psychological anguish, a cathartic journey towards freedom, in a film that is not for all audiences.

It took me three tries to get through this movie in its entirety. As someone who is currently going through a very difficult grieving process, it was particularly hard for me to watch the film.

It all starts with a serious car accident where the main character, July, loses her husband and daughter. She, like myself, feels a need to escape, to isolate herself from others, and she almost annuls herself by not bearing the pain and absence of her lost family. As the film is a kind of metaphor around the concept of freedom, to what extent is it liberating to have these attitudes? I sincerely do not kn...

Juliette Binoche is on fine form here as "Julie". She is driving her composer husband and their daughter along a country road when - next thing they have an encounter with a tree. Now the audience can expect this - we are shown the leaky brake fluid at the start, but we are not necessarily prepared for what is to come as she has to reconcile her own injuries and the difficulties (and opportunities) of her new life. That involves her taking herself deep into the anonymity of Paris - but she is soon to realise that her need for much desired isolation is not reciprocated by her friend who have no intention of letting her disappear under a rock. Things truly come to an head when she re-encounters old flame "Olivier" (Benoît Régent) and there mi...