Three Colours: Blue
Movie, 1993, Named by the director, Set in First in the trilogy
Three Colours: Blue is #17 of 48 in release order and #19 of 48 in chronological order in the Spiritual Trilogies.
The story
The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.
Three Colours: Blue recap
Julie survives a car crash that kills her husband Patrice, a famous composer, and their young daughter. In hospital she tries to swallow a handful of pills and cannot. Back home she destroys the score of the unfinished piece Patrice was writing to celebrate European unity, sleeps once with his assistant Olivier, who has long loved her, and leaves. She sells the house and moves anonymously into a Paris flat, taking only a mobile of blue glass beads. She tries to live without attachments, but fragments of the music keep returning to her. She refuses to sign a petition to evict Lucille, a neighbour who works as a stripper, and the two become friends. Her mother, who has dementia, mistakes her for her own sister. Then Olivier says on television that he means to finish the concerto, and the broadcast shows photos of Patrice with a woman Julie does not know. Blue, standing for liberty, opens Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours Trilogy, named for the French flag.
Three Colours: Blue ending explained
Julie finishes the concerto with Olivier and lets herself love again. She finds Patrice's mistress, a lawyer named Sandrine, who is pregnant with his child, and gives her the family house and Patrice's name for the baby. She then works on the score with Olivier, who refuses to finish it unless she is credited. She calls him and goes to him. As the chorus sings the finished piece, the film passes over the people her life has touched, and Julie, crying, starts to smile.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Where to watch Three Colours: Blue
Three Colours: Blue is streaming on TCM and HBO Max in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango At Home.
Ratings
IMDb 7.8/10, Rotten Tomatoes 98%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Days of Being Wild, before In the Mouth of Madness.
- Chronological order: after All the President's Men, before Three Colours: White.
Cast
- Juliette Binoche as Julie
- Benoît Régent as Olivier
- Florence Pernel as Sandrine
- Charlotte Véry as Lucille
- Hélène Vincent as Journalist
- Philippe Volter as Real Estate Agent
- Claude Duneton as Doctor
- Hugues Quester as Patrice (Julie's Husband)
- Emmanuelle Riva as Mother
- Florence Vignon as The Copyist
- Daniel Martin as The Downstairs Neighbour
- Jacek Ostaszewski as The Flutist
Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski.