The Great British Summer is upon us. The pavements and buildings seem to crackle from the heat, there’s the insistent drone of popular songs distorted through the speakers of ice cream vans and there’s the traditional sight of office workers crammed together on any piece of greenery they can spot, ripping their shirts off whilst they attempt to obtain a St Barts tan during their lunch break. Beautiful weather is lethal; it makes us irrational and drains all our energy. We end up as beached whales in parks unable to summon the strength to return home. So let me offer you an antidote to this lethargy with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s ‘Three Colours: Blue‘, a film that will have the same effect as plunging into a pool on a hot summer’s day. It will refresh, revitalise and make all your nerve-endings tingle.

I cannot recall the date or how I came across it – all I know is that one day I sat down and watched ‘Blue’. It was my introduction to art house films and world cinema and it hit me like a revelation. Many years later, it’s impact on me still holds a strong resonance. The Polish director Kieslowski had a vision to create a trilogy centred on the French Republic principles and using the French Tricolor as a connecting theme. In the hands of any other director this could have been a trite concept but Kieslowski really transformed the tripartite motto away from the political towards the personal. He purposefully used different technicians and directors of cinematography for each film to avoid any stylistic similarities and continuity. He did however interlink these films by having previous characters make cameo appearances.

The first installment of the trilogy is ‘Blue’ and is based on the theme of Liberty. The film begins with a horrific car crash in the French countryside of which Juliette Binoche’s character Julie Vignon de Courcy is the sole survivor. When Julie learns that both her daughter and her husband, a renowned composer, both died in the accident, we watch her struggling to cope with her grief. It is a grief which Julie internalises – unable to cry for them. A journalist that visits her in hospital calls her rude and cold – but her face and body subtly show how affected she is. Her mouth quivers as she watches the funeral on her television set and sees her daughter’s casket. But still she is numbed by her loss which leads her to inflict self-harm, forcing her to feel again, even if it is only pain. She slams a piano lid on her hand and drags her hand along a rough wall to tear at her skin. Still she does not cry but now she hurts physically, proving to herself that if she can feel pain than she is human.

We watch Julie furiously trying to eradicate her family and her past. After being discharged from the hospital and returning home she empties the handbag she had with her in the car. Out tumbles a sweet with a blue wrapper, the same one we had seen her daughter wave out the car window before the crash. Binoche’s face is heart-breaking as she takes a sharp intake of breath, closes her eyes tightly and turns her head away from the sweet. Then she turns back and feverishly tears at the wrapper and eats the sweet, driven to destroy memories. She sells the house and renounces everything that belonged to her husband, his manuscripts and even his surname (she returns to using her maiden name when she moves to the city.) The only item she retains from her past is a blue crystal mobile that used to hang in her daughter’s bedroom.

Kieslowski is a master at character studies and cleverly submerges the audience into Julie’s world, he allows us to observe her intimately whilst maintaining a slight distance. It is as if he is protecting her, according her a dignified respect, as we never fully understand all her actions (such as when she gives her home and money to her husband’s pregnant lover). Kieslowski uses many close-ups of mundane objects, such as watching a passing light, casting shadows across a cafe table that Julie is sat at. There is also the famous shot of a sugar cube absorbing coffee that Julie has dangled over her cup. This is Julie’s viewpoint – only focusing on what is near to her. She wants to limit her world and block out all intrusions such as the lover sat across the table pleading with her.

No matter how hard Julie tries the outside world keeps forcing itself upon her. Kieslowski illustrates this best by using Zbigniew Preisner’s extraordinary score. There’s the scene when Julie has been swimming and just as she pulls herself out, she freezes as Preisner’s music blasts out. It is the music from her husband’s ‘Unification of Europe’ symphony, slowly she slides back into the water, floating and with her fingers in her ears trying to shut out her husband. It is the one thing of his that she can not escape. Sat at a cafe, she hears a tramp playing a theme from her husband’s music on a recorder. The music is a character in itself – constantly interrupting and haunting Julie.

The colour blue is used throughout the film as a manifestation of Julie’s state of mind – it is the colour of grief and sadness. Sometimes the blue is used as an accent, for example a blue manuscript folder or a blue beaded mobile. At other times it is a lit up swimming pool or a flood of light filtered through, casting shades of blue on Julie’s face. Kieslowski also used ‘fade to black’ technique in a unique way. Usually a fade to black is used to signify a change of time or the end of a scene. However Kieslowski used this technique only 4 times in the film, all in the same style. In one scene Julie is sleeping at the hospital, suddenly a shadow of blue light plays upon her face. Her husband’s symphony begins to play. She is jolted awake and stares at the camera in horror as the screen fills up with blue light. The camera pans away and then draws close again towards Julie’s face. The music ceases and Julie hears someone say ‘Bonjour.’ The music plays again and the screen fades to black, there’s a slow fade back to Julie who then replies ‘Bonjour.’ In this period when the screen is black, everything is suspended apart from the music which continues to play. It is as though Julie is unable to confront the thoughts that are going on in her head and is desperately trying to block them. It is a clever technique and works wonderfully.

Slowly, Julie begins to find closure. She gives her old home to her husband’s lover and she completes her husband’s unfinished symphony. Kieslowski has used Julie’s situation as an example of cathartic liberation. With the death of her husband and daughter she no longer has the role of ‘mother’ and ‘wife’ to play. Julie not only slowly liberates herself from her suffering and grief but also embarks on creating her new life, her own freedom. The first time we ‘see’ Julie is when we are in the hospital bed observing the doctor though Julie’s eyes. Not only is this a technically advanced shot but it’s also a powerful subjective viewpoint. Kieslowski then counterpoints this at the end of the film by showing Julie’s naked body perched at the end of the bed observed through her lover’s eye.

As Carl Jung said ‘ We cannot change anything until we accept it.’ At the end of the film, after having made love, Julie is lost in thought and slowly tears fall from her eyes. It is probably the only time we observe her crying. Finally she has found release by experiencing the grief she has been hiding from and if you look close enough a slight smile plays across her face. It is a smile of hope.

Not many films have the ability to draw you down into what feels like a dark, infinite space filled with overwhelming sadness and ends elevating you to an appreciation of life. Watch ‘Blue’. It will never leave you.

The climatic 5 minute montage, showing all the lives affected in the film. This is utterly devastating – even without seeing the whole film and knowing the symbolism of the characters shown, this ending cannot fail to give you goosebumps.