on being bleu: a review of the film, bleu
Published September 28, 2004
Who cannot feel such sorrow and empathize with or for the beautiful juliette binoche and her suffering in the film Bleu, part of the color trilogy ("Trois Coleurs").. I can't think of anyone who would lose both husband and child and not feel as she feels, which is so beyond depressed that she retreats deep within herself to a place that is icily cold and utterly untouchable. Here, she will sit out her deep freeze - assuming that there is an end in sight. If there is, it seems very, very far away in this film, and one wonders if anyone, anywhere, could ever recover from such an awful accident.
Julie's grief is brutal, bashing and smashing everything around it and lacking completely in any sticky sentimentality that we would expect from a film that perhaps had been cut and made by a different director and featuring a different actress.
centered around the film is her late husbands' work - a concert for the Unification of Europe, of which it is rumored that Julie (Binoche) writes instead of her husband. It would seem, he takes the credit and she does the work. Yet this is known, for when a reporter finds Julie in the hospital, she asks the question directly and is received with an icy stare that says Fuck the hell off (the French version, of course). "I didn't remember you as so rude," the reporter says, to which is replied, "perhaps you didn't hear. I lost my husband and daughter." Was she supposed to be all happy and light.
Julie emerges from the hospital still with her iciness intact, but with a different sort of blankness that she tries to fill in various ways; by donating the bulk of her estate to the gardener the cook, and so on, and eventually, giving over the grand country house in which they all lived to her husband's pregnant lover (this is all very French, bien sur, but no surprises here.) In a way this is so much more civilized and respectable than some histrionic and hysterical woman on a jealous rage. After all, what emotion could Julie have left. What is jealousy over a mistress or anger compared to the incredible grief that she feels and is yet unable to express. Even halfway through the film, Julie has not cried or visibly mourned. Her mourning takes an entirely different form, and one that is not so different from a truer grief - a grief so profound that one is in a state of almost permanent shock, as if joy would never be felt again.
- on being bleu: a review of the film, bleu
- Published: September 28, 2004
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- Filed Under: Video: Foreign Language, Video: Drama
- Writer: Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti
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Comments on this articleComments
you are right; it does focus a great deal on emotional resonance and her very real and palpable loss and how this changes her. what's more, the things she finds out about her life; but isn't that always the way. when you think you know someone and they die, you often find out all sorts of things that would have been better if never found, alas, as i know from personal experience. More reasons to live your life openly and honestly.
The scene that really gets to me in the film is when she gets the cat to eat the newborn mice; the screaming of them. how she can no longer be a "mother" or deal with any kind of mothering in any animal. it's hard. yet she is so good to the mistress and gives her the house, perhaps because she has nothing left to lose. After all, wasn't she "mistress" of the house in every other way? Binoche, "Julie", knows this. When she fucks her dead husband's partner it is purely an exercise to see if she can feel anything - and i don't know that she does. it's so brutal and sad and i like that about this film - i respect it's raw honesty, and while i know many disagree with me, i'll still defend it because i can identify with so much of what Julie goes through, and i can tell you, the director got the real deal out of this - it almost seems NOT acted, but like it is deeply felt, as if Binoche herself has or had been through a similar devastation (though haven't we all, perhaps).
Your comments are intersting though,but i'm afraid this time, i think we are not in agreement. I hated RED, and WHITE. Thought both were stupid. But Blue always stuck with me for some reason because the hurt is so real and hurt, as we know, is not easy to capture in writing or on film. It takes real talent on the part of all involved and this time, i think they succeed without being the least bit sappy.
I applaud that, and should have said more about that in my review (god, i'm thick sometimes). But alas, i've said it now.
But as ever, your thoughts are most welcome and thought-provoking.
Cheers, and my best to you -
sade
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Although I'm generally a fan of Binoche and even wanted to like Bleu, in fact I couldn't get into it. The story was perhaps too painful and dwells too much on emotional resonances than on plot or character development. A far more interesting performance for Binoche was Rendez-Vous, which focused not only on the question of suffering but universal questions of art as well.
It's too bad Ingmar Bergman never had a chance to use her in his movies. By the way, you should visit my imaginary movie list for doomed romance film festival