This week on Bad Dads Film Review, Sidey, Dan, Reegs and Cris review Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue, the first part of the director’s famous trilogy inspired by liberty, equality and fraternity. This is the liberty one, although the film’s idea of freedom is less “joyful self-expression” and more “what if grief made you sell your life, bin the furniture, delete your feelings and move into a Paris flat with only a blue lamp for company?”
Juliette Binoche stars as Julie, a woman who survives the car crash that kills her composer husband and young daughter. After a failed suicide attempt, she decides not to die but to detach from everything: the house, the music, the money, the memories, the people and any emotional bond that might hurt her again. Unfortunately for Julie, life keeps refusing to leave her alone. A witness from the crash returns her necklace, a neighbour draws her into an unlikely friendship, Olivier tries to complete the great unfinished concerto, and the discovery of her husband’s pregnant mistress forces Julie to confront what compassion might look like after devastation.
The dads talk about the huge Prime subtitles, the opening crash, the funeral, the failed overdose, the destroyed manuscript, the swimming-pool scenes, the blue lighting, the sugar cube, the street musician, Lucille and the sex club, Julie’s mother, the mistress Sandrine, the concerto for Europe, and the way the film uses reflections, glass, music and sudden cuts to black to show memory and grief breaking through Julie’s carefully constructed numbness.
Verdicts are a clean sweep. Dan finds the filmmaking so strong that the heavy subject matter becomes surprisingly easy to watch, and he now wants to see the rest of the trilogy. Sidey thinks some viewers might accuse it of being pretentious, but for him the story is simple, moving and beautifully made, with Juliette Binoche giving an exceptional performance. Reegs loves it and calls it a banger. The official Bad Dads verdict: a strong blue recommend.
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