on being bleu: a review of the film, bleu
Published September 28, 2004
After, she smiles, thanks him. says she is like any other woman. She spits, she coughs. she is human after all. What is interesting is what compels this. Is it that she didn't die in the accident and this is some kind of proof to herself that she is human, fallible; she is telling us, She too could have died, but this time, did not. Julie can bleed, she wants to tell us, for immediately after, we find her running her knuckles along a rough brick wall until they bleed, as if she is humming the mantra, "I feel, I feel, I feel" expressing what she is unable to express, letting her banging and smashing and bleeding do the talking for her.
Even a necklace that is returned to her by a young boy who has witnessed the accident seems to leave her unmoved. She meets him, tells him a joke her husband was telling them the moment the car crashed, but leaves him holding the golden cross found at the scene that could be her daughter's or her husband's - her rejection of it is no less than a rejection of religion, it seems, of Christ. what use could God be to her now. He has failed her for the last time, she seems to be saying. If she rejects the cross, then she cannot be failed by a false god that would cause or just allow such horrors to befall anyone.
She is told by a neighbor who finds out that she lives alone that Julie is "not the type anyone would dump" which is both true and not true. First, she has been left but by death that nobody could have prevented, and more, in time she will find out about her husband's affair; which is to say that wasn't dumped, but she was rejected in some way. The affair, while in reality it likely says more about the husband, no doubt to Julie is yet another way in which she is less human not only to herself, but in the eyes of her husband when he was alive. She wasn't even the type to fuck and have fun with; he had to get a mistress for that. Julie is too holy, too pure, in everyone else's eyes and for the bulk of the film, she sets about proving everyone wrong; she bleeds, she feels, she too can kill (as she shows by killing some mice in her new and spare apartment). She is a murderess, she tell us, as if she is taking responsibility for killing her own husband.
- 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