Three Colors: Blue (1993)

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First of a trilogy of films dealing with contemporary French society concerns how a composer deals with the death of her husband and child (imdb)

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Directed By: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Written By: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Agnieszka Holland, Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Starring: Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Emmanuelle Riva, Hélène Vincent, Benoît Régent, Hugues Quester, Philippe Morier-Genoud, Florence Pernel, Philippe Volter, Charlotte Véry, Claude Duneton

Genres: Drama, Mystery, Music

Franchise: Three Colors

AKAs: Three Colours: Blue, Trois couleurs: Bleu

Country: France, Poland, Switzerland, UK

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Three Colors: Blue belongs to 113 collections

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All Ratings | With Reviews

Order by:

TCI | Percentile | Date Rated | # Stars (Reviews)

Stars	User	Rating
9	MartinTeller	96 _98th
Blue explores liberty from fascinating viewpoints. The story of Julie's frustrated quest for freedom (and its resolution) is quite moving and thought-provoking. Kieslowski's artistry is clearly advanced since Decalogue, with a far more painterly, impressionistic touch. His use of music, and of course color, is extraordinary.
7	hehejaja	100 _99th
Some of the best shit ever created.
5	eveelun	80 _78th
Technically magnificent, with a fantastic soundtrack, nice impressionistic visuals, and a great performance from Binoche. But to be honest it felt kind of forced and never really resonated with me on a personal level, hence it's my least favorite of the trilogy (which is to say it's only great, not totally amazing).
4	Magb	95 _94th
A great, great, great film. I love the use of color, and the marriage of music and image -- especially in the fantastic ending sequence. Juliette Binoche's performance is way up there among the greatest I've seen, as well.
3	PeaceAnarchy	89 _92nd
A wonderfully photographed movie about a woman dealing with the death of her husband. Binoche is wonderful and plays her character with a lot of depth and subtlety.
3	febraro	95 _97th
The best image-music combination I've ever seen, and a reason to love Juliette Binoche. People say Rouge is the best film in the trilogy, but Bleu is definitely the best one to me, and one of my all-time favorites.
3	Icarus	100 _99th
A truly magnificent film. Kieslowski documents the descent into and reawakening from grief with emotional and psychological complexity. The outstanding moments are too many to list: the intuitive blending of music and image, the way music and light continually break into Julie's world, the refusal to delve into cheap sentiment or overplay key moments, the little girls jumping into the pool, and that beautifully poetic final sequence, played to the choral performance of 1 Corinthians 13. Wow.
3	Bown	91 _94th
Rewatch 20/11/16 - My last review of this movie was really shit. I am so much better at watching movies now than I was at university. Legit masterpiece.
3	bof	89 _96th
Visually and musically stunning. Kieslowsky treats it as a slow, but relentless psychological thriller of sorts - Binoche acting like someone trying desperately to keep a lid on an overboiling pot without showing it for so much of the film.
3	Vdecraim	90 _96th
Kieslowski truly is a great artist. Creating scenes with great emotional tension by using deceptively simple imagery. Everything adds up in perfect harmony: the music, the characters, the symbolism,... The slow pacing is reminiscent of a smart card player. Bluffing, fooling around, holding back. But the last scene shows the true Kieslowski: an artist at the top of his craft, showing us the inner workings of mankind and society.
2	Actionberg	90 _92nd
Great art finds beautifully simple meaning in the swirling chaos of existence, and through Julie's journey of grief I see a plethora of such meanings. For a while she tries to remain a single aspect of an orchestra, denying the vibrancy of life to walk a fine line of indifference, but as she discovers through love, the lives of others, and the final composition of her late husband, life has value through harmony. Living ain't just a single tone; it's the greatest fucking symphony ever written.
2	dghosh	95 _95th
Awsome film making along with splendid performance. This highly thought provoking has beautiful realization of events demonstrating subtle human emotions under a great shock in life.
2	Farzan	92 _92nd
Blue is a magnificent piece of film, mainly because of Kieslowski's beautiful camerawork and imagery, and the fantastic performance by Juliette Binoche. Blue is a depressing film that never really slows down. It has excellent pacing, and there never is a scene that wasn't necessary. Great use of music, and the intertwining feelings that follow her are displayed so naturally. The depth of Binoche's character is one of the best I have seen.
2	Stain	40 _23rd
Binoche is very good, but I don't understand why people like this film so much. It's made in such a way that's not so much "emotionally distancing" as emotionally repulsive
2	JooJoo	4 _55th
I am completely unimpressed; with the characters, story, and any technical merits that people hail Kieslowski for. Past an OK lead, you have only a handful of other parts, all of which are about as poor in their delivery as the script that brings them together.
2	TonythePony	83 _80th
Binoche is stunning throughout, her grief and disconnection captured beautifully, a mesmerising performance. Sadly, all the other characters feel hollow and vacant in contrast, especially the boring Olivier. The music, frustratingly, rarely moved me, often jolting me out of the story rather than deeper in. Still, Binoche performance and Kieslowski visual touches combine so beautifully my attention was fixed, the colours haunting and beautiful rather than gimmicky as I feared.
2	bharath	85 _97th
Julietter Binoche gives an amazing performance playing the widow in grief. Kieslowski presents you with a visually stunning piece here. There wasnt an instant in the movie that I wasnt glued to it. Really mesmerizing movie. A must see for all.
2	Judo Koala	85 _90th
A study of how sorrow and trauma can turn itself, no matter how limited, into selfless love. Splendid imagery and sound, the various colour combinations creating a world that oscillates between varying degrees of melancholia, often rather surrealist at times. Punctuated by smart utilization of the soundtrack, and a fantastic performance by Binoche who wears the suffering across the her face, 'Blue' is a beautiful achievement that washes over the viewer.
2	Rufam	75 _72nd
It takes a director of Kieslowski's skill and Juliette Binoche's best efforts to turn the stiff and uneventful story that takes place in "Bleu" into a fascinating and haunting art picture. The film is full of gorgeous images and wonderful music while the direction and cinematography are flawless. The final montage is so stunningly beautiful that it obtains a rare poignancy. Too bad that the story is stale and inflexible and it leads nowhere. The style and atmosphere however, make it worth it.
2	PerryStroika	93 _99th
The Binoche-Kieslowski pairing is one of the most intimate actress-director pairings in the history of cinema, comparable with Monica Vitti-Michelangelo Antonioni, or Marlene Dietrich-Josef Von Sterburg.
2	W00DY	89 _93rd
An imaginative and original movie, laced with visual and aural treats. Kieslowski's clever use of lighting, filters and camera angles makes for some truly remarkable cinematography and the score is hauntingly beautiful, marrying with the emotion on screen. Binoche's performance has the perfect amount of intensity and vulnerability to get her character just right.
2	Bobbles	61 _29th
Technically well made, but ultimately superficial tripe pretending to be an examination of grief. The biggest offender is the ending, which features the words "Love is patient, love is kind..." and frames them as if they were the very key to our human condition. I burst out laughing at that moment -- surely not the intended reaction. The cinematography also left me cold; as in Kieslowski's similarly daft (but very pretty) "Double Vie", the visual symbolism was far too on-the-nose for my liking.
2	anilscn	67 _75th
100 verdiğiniz az olmuş yok 500 amk abartmayın bi boku da ya
1	DavidKahane	92 _86th
The specter of mortality is drawn over the entire film, enhanced by the sense of all the ways in which life itself drifts away from us. Binoche is moving and insightful in her role, all the more impressive given that the character's primary mode is one of self-imposed isolation, giving Binoche little to play off of except the sense of her own tragic history. Kieslowski is a sensual visual artist, continually coming up with boldly unorthodox ways to frame his shots and wash the screen with color.
1	Buster	100 _77th
I consider this to be 1/3 of the greatest film of the last part of the century. Juliette Binoche went places here that most actresses could not even dream of. Simply heartbreaking.
1	Lucky	85 _76th
Stunning visionary cinematography and a lead performance as beautiful and fragile as glass.
1	djross	45 _34th
Dull and over-praised (though admittedly it is decades since I saw it). The series improves with WHITE and RED.
1	Kavu	91 _96th
Movie as art. A bit slow but very beautiful and well acted. Every detail is carefully thought through.
1	Derekstar	100 _96th
I loved the movie, and I also feel like it's much smarter than I am. That's a great feeling. It means I'm going to love it even more when I watch it again.
1	Alex Watkins	4 _70th
Kieslowski's films are deeply religious, but his religion is simply a fascination with everyday human existence and faith in how we remain inextricably linked to one another in the most mysterious ways. Try as she might to shut herself off from the world, life keeps dragging Julie back into the orbit of the people in her life, some of whom she'd rather have nothing to do with, but all of whom she can't avoid, or avoid feeling for. Muted yet beautiful.
1	MonsterGear	86 _81st
Very moving. Thoroughly enjoyable.
1	martryn	95 _97th
Juliette Binoche's finest role, in my opinion.
1	frederic_g54	10 _97th
"The Double Life of Veronique" was reason enough for me to delve into Kieslowski's masterful oeuvre even further. The use of color is strikingly bewitching and Binoche carries the film with ease and humbleness. The music is extraordinary, not since Kubrick have I had the chance to see a director marry visuals and music so marvelously, the latter encompassing a vast array of emotional qualities. Highly recommended !!!
1	Mentaculus	95 _95th
Liberté has its colloquial ideal, but to the point it means isolation, this film, at least, knows it loses a part of its humanity. Both Binoche and Kieslowski command every frame - from pool water masquerading as tears, to shots bled completely of the blue tint, leaving only a hellish, scorched hue - it’s a miracle of an experience. Rarely do films illustrate musical art in the way this does. When the grief is all-encompassing, the very film itself goes dark.
1	meerkat	100 _96th
uliette Binoche is beautiful and Krzystof Kieslowski was an artist of people and emotion.
1	Manhatta	93 _84th
A double threat: incredible direction (basically every shot blew me away) and a wonderful performance by Binoche, who is always absolutely believable.
1	Obdurate	90 _91st
Wonderful music from Zbigniew Preisner. Blue shows up a bunch of times as symbolism (screens tinted blue, blue objects, etc). Also has great cinematography, that really showcases the symbolism. Loaded heavily with subtle metaphors for liberty and other things. Acting was great. Some adult material. Can be a little depressing however it is also uplifting in the way that music mends her. A careful meditation on art, such as music. Great pacing as well, every scene is loaded with reason/purpose.
1	pompousass	20 _44th
There's a great deal of blue light, a "blue room," a blue glass mobile, a blue swimming pool, a blue sucker, and a blue-out transitional device. The widow, in addition to seeing all this blue, periodically hears amplified bursts of her husband's music. Kieslowski, who elicits from Binoche the same camera-conscious emoting he got from Irene Jacob in _The Double Life of Veronique_, adds all manner of visual frippery and froufrou.
1	CosmicMonkey	80 _68th
The sort of arthouse film that's less about what it says, and more about how it says it, and in this case it's a moodily beautiful multi-sensory tone poem about the (sometimes perverse) beauty of grief and mourning. Obviously rich in symbolism and subtext, and Binoche's performance is one for the ages. Any thematic connection to the French Revolution is tenuous at best.
1	Ella May	80 _86th
Interesting exploration of "liberty" through various feminine identities. The main character is free because she has lost her family and so she is not a wife or a mother anymore. Images of women in varied roles are contrasted, including the mistress who is an expectant mother, the senile old mother who thinks her daughter is her sister, and a sexually promiscuous strip-dancer whose father is in the audience - reminding us that all women are daughters.
1	omgfridge	9 _92nd
Marathon'd the trilogy though that is only around 270 minutes. Blue was my favorite part. The use of music and colour is utilized beyond what I could ever expect. Wonderful.
1	KAH	4 _93rd
The music, the colors, the little details, the way she moves on and wins her freedom. A lovely movie. Kieslowski's crowning achievement.
1	psim	81 _78th
A beautifully shot and acted film about grief and the need for human connection.
1	jmarkthespot	90 _93rd
This was incredible. Juliette Binoche's performance was so exhilerating that I don't recommend driving or operating heavy machinary for at least 8-12 hours after viewing.
1	bolivar	80 _89th
fantastically filmed; beautiful shots follow beautiful shots. im not sure of what this movie wants. the ending with the whole love beats everything deal just doesnt quite cut it for me. the pacing is also really off in the first half. nice scenes that really need to sink in to set the mood are over way too quickly. also, the idea of a composer whos supposedly so big and still writes this type of music in this day and age? uh, no thats not quite how it works in this century with classical music.
1	deaddilly	85 _84th
TC: Blue is a gorgeous, meditative experience. It speaks through dynamic visual swells that wash over both the characters and the audience. Binoche's enigmatic performance deserves to be the cornerstone of restrained, minimalist acting. Still, I found the supporting cast to be very weak and the plot did not progress gracefully.
1	QuickyAPI	88 _94th
Great performance of Juliette Binoche in this quality film. The cinematography is awesome with great use of color, detail and movement, sometimes interestingly abstract. The music also plays very well along with the story. I'm still pondering what Kieslowski wanted to tell me in this movie, but either way it was a great watch. I'm curious about the other two movies from the series now.
1	tinysausage	92 _99th
Near perfection. Every frame of the sublime photography reinforces our empathy with the grieving Binoche as she tries, and fails, to shut down her feelings.
1	Zio	100 _94th
The first masterpiece of three masterpieces in the Three Colors trilogy by Kieslowski. Blue takes on the challenge of liberty and liberation, a French Revolutionary ideal. But not just about being free, Blue asks what must be sacrificed and is it even possible to be completely liberated from all that we know or, for that matter, worth it being free? Blue shows just exactly what the right director with the right script with the right actors can achieve.
1	bmilky	89 _88th
feeling so lonely after watch this movie
1	Dumptruk4Lif	80 _44th
Some nice situations and editing surprises, but a little mundane and obscure in how it's saying what it's saying (which I don't know what that is). Maybe I need to watch the other two to fully appreciate this.
1	Yiannos	75 _84th
It amazes me that some people have described Blue as subtle. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer. The symbolic properties of color and the significance of an incomplete musical composition inspired by the dream of a unified Europe are so on the nose that it verges on parody. It's a testament to Kieslowski and Binoche's combined talent that it narrowly misses. Binoche is luminous as a grief stricken woman, and K.K's creates a sensual mood that evokes the character's isolation and trauma.
1	Hawkins	74 _55th
Da ba dee, da ba die. I find Blue the weakest of the three, carried mostly by Binoche. There's a pretty funny boom mic whoopsie near the end. Maybe I should look up what the French flag represe-"The three colours are occasionally taken to represent three elements of the revolutionary motto, liberté (blue), égalité (white), fraternité (red); this symbolism was referenced in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy, for example." Wikipedia knows just what my clueless American ass needs.
1	hssnozdagg	91 _92nd
Beautiful masterpiece.

Average Percentile 74.36% from 4703 Ratings