I've been trying to post something about this film all week. Finally, this morning, I had a flood of thoughts in response to an email. It's appropriate to just share it as it is - with a few tweaks...
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Krzysztof Kieślowski died suddenly and surprisingly in 1996 at the age of 54. Afraid of repeating himself, he had retired from filmmaking after the last of his Three Colors trilogy was completed in 1994. With that, he left us with three very large and significant "small answers", or at least some intense next level questioning.
"How far are we really free? How far are we free from feelings? Is love a prison? Or is it freedom?"
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It seems that in order to really explore the idea of love without it becoming a Hallmark feature, we have to explore the inherent pain - which Julie experiences through grief, but since she can't willingly end her life (which she tries to do twice), she forces herself to embrace the ultimate freedom (isolation) by creating a world for herself that is without children, without home, without music, without emotion, without spirituality, without responsibility to anything. Only coffee and ice cream remain.
She cannot anticipate that at every turn, this "freedom" is subverted. Whether or not she was afraid of mice as a child - she cannot bear being in the presence of a mother rat and her pink infants - so she must end their life violently. She cannot escape the music in her mind, which haunts her - in part because she wants to forget, but also because she is responsible to finish the composition (Song for the Unification of Europe).
Human frailty, suffering, and abuse exist everywhere around her - almost literally beating down her own door.
As soon as she risks her isolation by befriending (or being befriended) by the erotic dancer/prostitute - she cannot resist her own need/duty/humanity to be responsible in relationship to her - which leads to the discovery of her husband's mistress - which leads to the major turning away from freedom - because she cannot control her jealousy. Without jealousy, she might have sustained her isolation - but now it breaks, forcing her to choose between love/hate, revenge/reconciliation, misery/gratitude, and Malick's recent dichotomy of "nature/grace". It is almost as if freedom is either just a bullshit concept all together - or that freedom can only be found through loving, and being loved.
The final montage is beautiful to me because it also gives 1st Corinthians an ambiguity through seeing the mother, who is lost to a kind of Alzheimers, and the dancer who may never reconcile her guilt/shame - unless she can reconcile with her father. Combining the human condition with lovemaking, the cross, advent, and the reflection of a naked human body through the mirror of the eye, brings something much deeper (and more human) to what Paul had maybe wanted to communicate to the early church.
The pessimist that Kieslowski was known to be is interesting for folks like us. I dig this quote from the co-writer of "Blue", Piesiewicz, who noted that while Kieslowski's pessimism can be contagious, Blue is actually an effort to refute their pessimism...
"The most important things are people's dreams and their sufferings...That's why I want to make films which are ever more clear, to fight against this growing feeling - in myself initially, and then in the viewer."
"You gotta always hold onto something"
"What was that?"
Holy Cinema.
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