I think that this movie is a superb movie. What are some of your favorite shots? My is the first time that Julie is in the cafe and the shot of the shadow of her mug is my favorite. Also, the scenes in the park. The music right before the screen would turn black was great, too.
The Film Freak
The best shot is when she is in hospitail and you can see the doctor in the reflection of her eyes. Or when she is isn the cafe and pours some of her coffe in the ice cream. I dont know why but its unpredictable (at least in English culture) and has strong meaning.
sharethere are alot of beautiful shots. my favorites are:
1. when it show's julie's sugar cube sucking up the coffee. it demonstrates how she focuses on tiny, overlooked things in order to distract herself from inner-turmoil.
2. the doctor in her eye (as noted above)
3. julie's face in the spoon at the diner.
Julie submerged in the absolute blueness of the swimming pool.
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Hi everyone and a happy new year!! Sorry for the delay in replaying just got back to work.
I think the ice cream and coffee thing is meaningful to me because it is random action; it’s not something I have ever come across. Maybe it has something to do with the car crash, how your life can suddenly change. I don’t know, but the fact that it is in the film, indicates the importance of the coffee and ice cream scene being in the film.
Are you not somewhat missing the point? It doesn't actually matter that you may or may not think that the coffee into the ice-cream moment has any meaning. The whole point is that people can have emotional connections with any of the shots in this film, based on their own experiences of the world. This is something that Kieslowski understands very well, and he says it in his masterclass... he puts in many layers of subtle moments in many places, so that though the viewer may not pick up on all of them, they will pick up on those that are relevant to themselves.
Personally, I think the coffee in the ice-cream moment is an important point with strong meaning. It tells us a little more about Julie's character, it tells us that she likes her ice-cream with coffee mixed in. Perhaps it even hints at the fact that, before her husband and child died she was much more relaxed, experimental person who liked to mix things up and sample different flavours? Of course this opinion is totally my own, and is based on my individual reading of the images... but to me, thats why its important.
I like all of these responses so far, and I hate that one of the posters felt compelled to be above any speculation whatsoever in the name of art. What!? Don't you think making guesses, even if they are shots in the dark at best, will further your understanding?
As for me, the coffee in the ice-cream bit, if I may offer my humble opinion, because all of these interpretations have been good so far, is that Binoche's hedonistic lifestyle following the death of her husband and daughter wasn't working out for her. In my mind, the scenes with her in the cafe are incredibly intimate and sensual. Indeed, the shot of Julie's eye at the very beginning is also intimate. It's the most intimate shot I've ever seen in a movie. I think her trauma, her survival after losing her family, is also an incredibly intimate thing. She shrinks into herself and searches inwardly to survive. She becomes a stalwart recluse. She shuns life. Now everything is about her and only her. For a time this works, she needs time away. But after a while, it begins to fail her, and she gets extremely listless and bored. And so the shot, focusing in on the coffee pouring over ice cream, is somewhere at the midway point in the grieving process. The intimacy of her grief and mourning is still there, but alone it isn't enough to sustain life. We must move on, or risk perishing ourselves.
This film is full of wonderful shots. I think I'm going to have to watch it a second time to really indulge myself in the plot and emotion of the film but in terms of aesthetics and cinematography it is immediate. The colour, tone, light - the silence, stillness. It was all brilliant. A few of the more lingering, serene shots were almost Lynchian I think. Some highlights:
- the doctor in the eye. This was stunning, perhaps one of the best cinema sequences I have ever seen. The pupil as a mirror is used again, later on, when we see the naked back of (I think, if I remember correctly), Julie in Olivier's eye. I'm not sure whether this idea of the eye as a lens in cinema has been used before to such an effect, ie. is it borrowed or original, but it was striking and the detail captivating.
- One of the shots that really stood out for me was a nighttime swimming pool, lingering shot. The water was really electric and vivid but also the reflections on the pool walls and the blue-drenched balconies of the adjacent building. The colour was phenomenal and contrasted with the black of the night and I thought that evoked Lynch quite a lot. That night shot really sticks in the mind.
- I thought the whole knuckles-on-the-wall sequence was brilliant, really well shot to the extent that you can actually see pellets of skin flying off the wall when she's scraping it flicking into the camera. The close-up of Julie's (real life, if legend is to believed) pain is very effective. There's a sort of grimace in the eyes, a near-tears wincing which is done very well.
- When Julie is underwater, completely submerged.
- the kids jumping into the pool with their armbands on. I found this quite comical because I thought it a reference to the fact that Julie had just killed a load of baby mice, and had sent her friend up to get rid of the evidence (as it were), because the guilt is plaguing her so much, and then right as she's trying to forget it/deal with it this little troop of kids dive-bomb into the water next to her!
- the opening shots of the car were absolutely fantastic and marked this film out from the first. The camera following the wheel is of course brilliant, as is the close-up of the dripping brake fluid, very subtly, but obviously, foreboding, telling us the story in advance almost. The close-up of the child simultaneously is very poignant as it is clear there will be some sort of road accident. I also thought the blurred tunnel lights in the sequence of the French flag and film trilogy (blue, red, white) were excellent and I picked up on them straight away (despite not having seen Red or White).
- Some people have mentioned the coffee/ice-cream scene. I agree that this is a pleasant scene and surprising.
I think the immediacy of the superiority of this film in terms of direction/cinematography is outstanding. As I say I'll probably re-watch to engage properly in the story and the emotion of it but every single shot is a thing of precise intelligent and beauty and I would say 100% Blue is a triumph in this respect.
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The cinematography is by Slawomir Idziak, not Kieslowski.
However, Kieslowski was of course involved by telling Idziak what he wanted and in setting up the shots....
What type of camera/lenses was used and how the lighting was carried out I don't remember.
As I recall, it was discussed in extras on the DVD. At least in the UK-edition (R2).
RIP Ian....
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