MovieChat Forums > Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993) Discussion > she smiles in the last second of the fil...

she smiles in the last second of the film?

posted 19 years ago by marianeta
2 replies | jump to latest

*spoilers herein*

i dont know anybody who noticed this. juliet binoche shows the slightest hint of a smile in the last second of the film...

almost everyone ive shown the film to thinks the ending (As with the rest of the movie) is depressing and has no resolution. i dont believe a film necessarily has to have a resolution, but Blue certainly has one...

i wouldnt want to go into the reasons for her resolution because if you've seen the film properly you should have noticed them yourself, or if not then you should rewatch the film - but they sure are existent long before the last second...

in any case i feel those tears at the end are tears of joy mixed with sadness, probably reflecting into the past and trying to place the present into perspective... but to me that long stare represents the whole film which is intensely sad most of the way until the end... im not sure if i dreamed it or whether through my research i actually did hear one of the filmmakers back up the hint of a smile...

but at the end of the film i play it back to friends and they still dont see it... then i play it back in slow motion one frame at a time and then after that about 1 out of every 4 people notice that she is beginning to smile...

i find this amazing... that such an important transition of emotion is placed in a split second... i believe kieslowski did this on purpose and that it is not a mistake. for sure. kieslowski certainly has "hidden" many other key moments/signs which some of us take for granted (as its easy for us to understand) while those who don't recognize the language are lost as to the meaning of the trilogy.

but why did he place the smile in such a way that i estimate 95 percent of viewers miss such an important feeling on at least the first viewing?

otherwise im still open to the possibility that she doesn't smile at all... maybe my mind is playing tricks with me (And those who agree with me)- what do you think? if you're going to answer me, id appreciate if you actually rewatch this moment on dvd so you can slow it down considerably... cos it may be difficult to spot...

In any case, smile or no smile, to me the last scene of Three Colours Blue is the greatest in film history.

Carpe Diem

[–] Anaxareta 19 years ago

In the DVD extra features of the Three Colours, Juliette Binoche explains the reason of that subtle smile. Let me see it again and I will tell you what she exactly says.

[–] Anaxareta 19 years ago

About the interview in the extra features, Juliette Binoche says about the smile at the end:

“She tries not to put feelings in the things she does. Life is hard, she has to accept something hard, so she tries to move with that enormous baggage on. That’s why the smile of the end was necessary for me. There’s a bit of liberation, a beginning of her own life. He (Kieslowski) didn’t want smile. I told him “I want to cry”, like he asked me, but I think there’s the need of an opening, that’s why the movie ends in the sky, we need hope. We filmed some things and at the end he decided to keep this opening. It’s not a complete smile, but with…like Chejov at the end of the Seagull: “I have faith, I go on, it’s hard but I have faith”. I think that in hard moments like this, we have more faith because it’s more difficult. When everything gets broken we don’t want to believe in anything”.