“I'm just fine. I have everything here. I have the TV. You can see the whole world” Trois couleurs: Bleu [Three Colors: Blue] (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)
Aug
15
cerulean
Julie (Juliette Binoche) in a blue wallpapered room, observes blue beads suspended in front of a window with a cerulean sky and ocean behind it. Throughout the story, her clothing changes from white, to black, to the darkest charcoal blue, to Prussian blue. DP: Slawomir Idziak.
Cerulean, or blue: in food or fashion*
– the mother
How could I not pick at least one instalment of Kieślowski's Trois couleurs trilogy. Here's blue, the liberté of the tricolor. Blue occurs as the sky to fall through, the room without life, and the cloth that binds.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.
blue
“Eh, i sogni a volte insegnano male, Dùnya, perché la verità intera non è mai in un solo sogno, la verità intera è in molti sogni.” Il fiore delle mille e una notte [Arabian Nights] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)
Aug
13
cerulean
The entrance of the Shah Mosque as seen in the film. The seven colours of the tile work are reflected in the extras' costumes. DP: Giuseppe Ruzzolini.
Cerulean, or blue: a building or structure*
One of the many exotic locations is the مسجد شاه, [Masjed-e Shah, or Shah Mosque] in Iran with its otherworldly blue and blue-adjacent tiles.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.
“You say to the boy 'Open your eyes'. When he opens his eyes and sees the light, you make him cry out, saying 'Oh, Blue, come forth! Oh, Blue, arise! Oh, Blue, ascend! Oh, Blue, come in!'.”Blue (Derek Jarman, 1993)
Jul
13
Oxymoron Day
Not a screenshot from the film, but a pure representation of International Klein Blue.
Synchronous to the screening of a film that wasn't, Derek Jarman's Blue was broadcast on radio and television. Those who tuned into the radio could request a special card printed in that most spectral of colours, International Klein Blue, a blue that according to its creator Yves Klein, has “a quality close to pure space” and “immaterial values beyond what can be seen or touched”.
– Nigel Terry
Submerged in #blue, seeing through what was left of Jarman's eyes, we live through the artist's life, and love, and loss. When you leave the theatre, put down that card, you're temporarily blinded by the physiological afterimage of a devastating disease. What remains is the voice of a filmmaker who lost his sight.
“The other day I got caught in some fishermen's net. Of course, I had to drown them. I couldn't allow them to touch me, could I?”Malá morská víla [The Little Mermaid] (Karel Kachyňa, 1976)
Mar
3
National Dress In Blue Day
The little mermaid (Miroslava Safránková) in her wonderful sea-blue dress, puts a coral-red rose in her blue hair. DP: Jaroslav Kučera.
Miroslava Safránková plays Hans Christian Andersen's doomed little mermaid – Malá morská víla in Czech – who falls in love with a mortal and gives up her beautiful voice to be with him. Sadly, the mortal, a prince, doesn't recognize his mute saviour and doesn't return his love.
– the little mermaid
The wonderful soundtrack is by Zdeněk Liška who also composed music for Ikarie XB 1 (Jindřich Polák, 1963) and Spalovač mrtvol (Juraj Herz, 1969).