Three Colors: Blue [Trois Couleurs: Bleu] **** (1993, Juliette Binoche, Benoît Régent, Florence Pernel, Charlotte Véry, Hélene Vincent) – Classic Movie Review 8719

The 1993 joint Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Three Colors: Blue [Trois Couleurs: Bleu] (tied with Robert Altman’s Short Cuts) is the fascinatingly themed opener of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy on liberty, equality and fraternity.

It probes the idea of ‘liberty through suffering’ as Julie Vignon (Juliette Binoche) survives a car crash in which her composer husband and daughter are killed. She attempts suicide, gets rid of her possessions and initially tries to destroy her husband’s unfinished Concerto for Europe score, and then struggles to find a way to carry on living her life.

Important director Kieslowski disappoints with an often obscure and elusive, low-voltage art-house movie, in which a not entirely convincing screenplay fails to deliver fully believable characters and motivations.

Nevertheless, Binoche’s riveting performance, which won her the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival in 1993, is a clear and enormous compensation, and so is Slawomir Idziak‘s cinematography, which produces such eye-catching images, as well as Zbigniew Preisner’s notable original score.

Three Colors: Blue [Trois Couleurs: Bleu] won a total of seven awards at the Venice Film Festival. It won three César Awards in 1994, including Best Actress.

It was nominated for three Golden Globes, including Best Foreign Language Film.

Also in the cast are Benoît Régent, Florence Pernel, Charlotte Véry, Hélene Vincent, Philippe Volter, Claude Duneton, Hugues Quester, Emmanuelle Riva, Zbigniew Zamachowski and Julie Delpy.

Three Colors: White and Three Colors: Red followed in 1994.

Three Colors: Blue [Trois Couleurs: Bleu] is directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, runs 98 minutes, is made by MK2 Productions, CED Productions, France 3 Cinéma, CAB Productions, Tor and Canal+, released by Artificial Eye (1993) (UK) and Miramax (1993) (US), is written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Krzysztof Kieslowski, is shot in Eastmancolor by Slawomir Idziak, produced by Marin Karmitz and scored by Zbigniew Preisner.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8719

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