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| Juliet Binoche |
It's the time to talk about Kieslowski's
Blue. The first installment of the trilogy aims to celebrate the concept of freedom through the life of Julie Vignon, beautifully portrayed by Juliet Binoche. It is a journey of self-redemption and forgiveness following the death of both her husband and daughter. The color blue serves as a medium for contemplation, of memory and of getting in touch with the nature and magnitude of suffering. The soundtrack, composed by Zbigniew Priesner, also plays an important role in the movie as a spiritual and emotional guideline.
Complete detachment from the past is the way Julie chooses to liberate herself from pain and suffering. She adopts an indifferent facade as if she merely carries her corpse around since her soul has died the day she loses her family. She withdraws herself from the world and completely shuts off everything that reminds her of the tragedy. She even throws away the music script for the concert her husband supposedly was working on. It is not the music but her own guilt that darts out and petrifies her:
She also tries to disconnect herself from human interactions. She seems to obtain certain degrees of relief from such practice yet her suffering is still there. It is an ignored wound that she neglects to take care of. Her failed effort to numb her feeling manifests itself in many ways. Her false sense of redemption is best described below:
As Julie relishes her brief freedom from suffering, an old woman struggles to get by her life. It is acceptable to spend some time to nurture yourself after a crisis, but remember that the world is still revolving around you. There are many other struggles, there are miseries greater than the one you experience. Reposition yourself in life in order to live again. My friend Batya introduces me to a great saying of Hillel the Elder:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?
Julie certainly has the answers to these questions. She wouldn't want to live in a perpetual state of numbness, of spiritual death symbolically equivalent to her mother's Alzheimer disease. When she reaches out to others who are also affected by the death of her husband and daughter, not only does she redeem herself but also touch their lives profoundly. She finally comes to term with her loss, accepts the reality, and lives again through her act of forgiveness to her husband's mistress and ultimately herself. Isn't it a coincidental irony that the song she finally completes is for the Unification of Europe? It is true that no man is an island. I believe that there are bridges connecting each man's island. For Julie, two of the most important bridges of her life have collapsed but isolating herself from the rest of mankind is not the solution.
It is also important to emphasize that the act of reaching out to others must occur at the same time of taking care for one's self. Whatever change must come from within first. We see Julie's effort to come to term with her loss is highlighted every time she swims. The blue water represents her emotional flow. The swimming pool is Julie's meditative haven. Every time she arises from the water, she reaches certain realization critical to her recovery process. In the following scene, notice two important elements. First, the recurring music keeps on haunting her. Secondly, she recoils into a fetal pose as if begging for a new beginning:
There's a bit of a religious undertone in the movie. There is similarity between Julie's rising up from the swimming pool and baptism. Even more prevalent, which religious figure do you think of from these elements: the blue color and the sorrowful mother figure? But I don't want to get there. I will save it when I talk about the Mr. K's Decalogue. Anyway, the old woman disposing the empty bottle is seen throughout the trilogy and also in The Double Life of Veronique. Mr. K's film is so packed with symbolism that you can make a meaning out of almost every details of his films. For Blue, I particularly enjoy the aspect of rebirth and forgiveness. I find so much hope and peace at the film concludes. In the last glorious scene, a tearful Julie is shown looking outside her window. Those are not her tears of anguish but of peaceful acceptance as she moves on with her life.
Life is more meaningful in suffering, only if you survive and live on, of course.
