Kevin the Blue
I wept this evening. It was quite odd, crying and laughing at the same time. Over an old movie called Trois Couleurs: Bleu. We all know this film, don't we? At least seeing the poster with the heroine, Julie (Juliette Binoche), looking away, like she's leaving but not quite.
I heard of this film from my favorite Chinese writer, Liu Xiao Feng's book The Unbearable Body, one which matronised me for years.
I do, but rarely, cry over movies. The Priest was the first the I cried for. However, I have never had what I had this evening, cryingly laughing, laughingly crying.
In Liu Xiao Feng's book, the movie was re-told for the purpose of, on the one hand, remembering the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, and questioning the idea of liberty on the other. Liu, in his big project presented in his book to depict the shift from the Ethics of the People to the ethics of freedom taking place now in Mainland China, cleverly recognised that the Three Colours Trilogy of Kieslowski, Bleu, Blanc, and Rouge, are in fact an attempt to re-examine the political ideas raised in the great revolution in France, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, in a personal dimension. Translation: could we really love? Is there equality in love? could one be set free in love?
Julie(,) (is) me and she
I was quite aware that it was not the story that touched me. I know the story by heart, and it was quite a simple one. Yet it was the simple plot that enabled the film to move me. Seeing Julie enduring the tragic happeninng, suppressing her feelings, destroying her current life trying to start a new life, for the first time I felt it was me that go through this, doing this, living this. And at points I felt is was also she going through this, doing this, living this. For the first time I had a chance having a glimpse of what she'd been through last winter, spring, and summer.
"No past! She decided to erase it all. Even if it re-emerges, it would be only in the music. It seems you can't really be freed totally from what has happened. You can't, because there comes the moments feelings of fear, or loneliness, or, like Julie, being deceived, penetrate your mind. Julie changed so much over the sense of being lied to that she realised no way she could live a life she wanted, nontheless it was in the catagory of personal free will. To what extent can we liberate ourselves from feelings? Is love a prison, or a freedom?" (my BAD translation)
Kieslowski said so in an interview, yet he did not know me, did he? Nor did he know her. Funny enough, my first time seeing this film, it was her besides me. I didn't cry, how could I? This time it be me only, yet I for the first time seemed to be really with her. And I cried.
My Fantasy
The movie is a story of a woman's quest from the most dislocated situation to the new place in her life. But it is also a story of the once left aside musical composition called "Symphony of Europe" being complished. It ends with the passsage from Corinthians I, 13, New Testament, "Though I speak with the tongues of angels, If I have not love, My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy, And understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, And though I have all faith So that I could remove mountains, If I have not love, I am nothing. Love is patient, full of goodness; Love tolerates all things, Aspires to all things, Love never dies, while the prophecies shall be done away, tongues shall be silenced, knowledge shall fade."
Sung in Greek at the end of the film, with the screen showing every character in the story having realisation, confort, or rest, and Julie making love to her finally-accepted lover. Never had I seen any filmmaker representing the act in such a beautiful way, using the choir chanting the prayer about love in its source language as the background music in a sex scene.
Just for a Kiss of an Unknown Girl
Kieslowski noted down two petit stories. Once in suburb of Paris, a teenage girl recognised him, came forwards and told him that since seeing his La Double Vie de Veronique, she realised that soul does exist. The other one, on the street of Birlin, an old matron came to him, cryingly holding his hand. For this woman lived with her daughter yet they hadn't spoken with each other for many many years. But after seeing his Dekalog, the daughter gave the woman a kiss on the cheek. "For a young girl to accept that soul exist, and another to kiss her mom once, that's worth of all the hard work," Kieslowski said latter in an interview. Although he also knew that the passion of that kiss wouldn't last for any longer than five minutes.
I heard of this film from my favorite Chinese writer, Liu Xiao Feng's book The Unbearable Body, one which matronised me for years.
I do, but rarely, cry over movies. The Priest was the first the I cried for. However, I have never had what I had this evening, cryingly laughing, laughingly crying.
In Liu Xiao Feng's book, the movie was re-told for the purpose of, on the one hand, remembering the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, and questioning the idea of liberty on the other. Liu, in his big project presented in his book to depict the shift from the Ethics of the People to the ethics of freedom taking place now in Mainland China, cleverly recognised that the Three Colours Trilogy of Kieslowski, Bleu, Blanc, and Rouge, are in fact an attempt to re-examine the political ideas raised in the great revolution in France, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, in a personal dimension. Translation: could we really love? Is there equality in love? could one be set free in love?
Julie(,) (is) me and she
I was quite aware that it was not the story that touched me. I know the story by heart, and it was quite a simple one. Yet it was the simple plot that enabled the film to move me. Seeing Julie enduring the tragic happeninng, suppressing her feelings, destroying her current life trying to start a new life, for the first time I felt it was me that go through this, doing this, living this. And at points I felt is was also she going through this, doing this, living this. For the first time I had a chance having a glimpse of what she'd been through last winter, spring, and summer.
"No past! She decided to erase it all. Even if it re-emerges, it would be only in the music. It seems you can't really be freed totally from what has happened. You can't, because there comes the moments feelings of fear, or loneliness, or, like Julie, being deceived, penetrate your mind. Julie changed so much over the sense of being lied to that she realised no way she could live a life she wanted, nontheless it was in the catagory of personal free will. To what extent can we liberate ourselves from feelings? Is love a prison, or a freedom?" (my BAD translation)
Kieslowski said so in an interview, yet he did not know me, did he? Nor did he know her. Funny enough, my first time seeing this film, it was her besides me. I didn't cry, how could I? This time it be me only, yet I for the first time seemed to be really with her. And I cried.
My Fantasy
The movie is a story of a woman's quest from the most dislocated situation to the new place in her life. But it is also a story of the once left aside musical composition called "Symphony of Europe" being complished. It ends with the passsage from Corinthians I, 13, New Testament, "Though I speak with the tongues of angels, If I have not love, My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy, And understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, And though I have all faith So that I could remove mountains, If I have not love, I am nothing. Love is patient, full of goodness; Love tolerates all things, Aspires to all things, Love never dies, while the prophecies shall be done away, tongues shall be silenced, knowledge shall fade."
Sung in Greek at the end of the film, with the screen showing every character in the story having realisation, confort, or rest, and Julie making love to her finally-accepted lover. Never had I seen any filmmaker representing the act in such a beautiful way, using the choir chanting the prayer about love in its source language as the background music in a sex scene.
Just for a Kiss of an Unknown Girl
Kieslowski noted down two petit stories. Once in suburb of Paris, a teenage girl recognised him, came forwards and told him that since seeing his La Double Vie de Veronique, she realised that soul does exist. The other one, on the street of Birlin, an old matron came to him, cryingly holding his hand. For this woman lived with her daughter yet they hadn't spoken with each other for many many years. But after seeing his Dekalog, the daughter gave the woman a kiss on the cheek. "For a young girl to accept that soul exist, and another to kiss her mom once, that's worth of all the hard work," Kieslowski said latter in an interview. Although he also knew that the passion of that kiss wouldn't last for any longer than five minutes.
posted by kevin | 15:11
1 Comments:
Thanks for commenting in my journal so that I could read this. I especially enjoyed reading of the last segment about those two stories. I'm always facinatd by the ways art can positively impact people.
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