"Blue" by Krzysztof Kieslowski

The award winning French film "Blue" is for first of a trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski.  This film shows how the wife of an acclaimed composer deals with his death after a car accident claims his and her child's life.  Julie, played by Juliette Binoche, must figure out how to move on with her life.  She eventually tries to sell her home and exiles herself to Paris where she lives completely independent and in solitude.  Turning to self destructive behavior, Julie sleeps with a man she knows has feelings for her not long after her husband's death, and kicks him out the next day. During the film she tries to destroy the incomplete music her husband was working on for a celebration of the European countries uniting.

Those who care about Julie do the best they can to snap her out of how she is acting. Once Julie has finally hit rock-bottom, she begins to realize what her behavior is doing do herself and to those are still alive.  Julie learns that her house was never sold and the music she had ordered to be destroyed was kept hidden by the lady who was looking after the music incase Julie ever decided she changed her mind.

She eventually gets her act together and attempts to finish the music her dead husband was working on before the accident. The man she had slept with earlier in the film offers to help her write it and confesses he was in love with her, and the one night stand they had made him fall even more in love with her. By the end, Julie feels free of her former life and begins a new path for a new life once the music is at last completed.

The theme of this film is freedom.  It is all about how Julie was being dragged down by her old life and eventually did what she could to break free of the oppression and begin a new life. There are actually different attempts for freedom in this film. First Julie swears off everything she knew and tries to live alone away from material and personal commitments.  Eventually this becomes an oppression all on its own. Julie realizes this and at lasts allows her soulless body to return to life and start again when she completes her husband's work and begins a new life.

For those of us who have trouble sleeping at night, I would have to say that this is one form of a sleeping aid that does not need a prescription.  The film was so slow moving I had far too much trouble paying attention to it. The music was only good part and even that was something I would only make someone listen to if I was torturing them. How much do you have to pay to get a terrible movie like this an award?