Responses to Blue

Blue Movie Response Writing Assignment


1. Name and describe a key scene in the film that you feel successfully integrated the formal quality of the color blue with the multiple symbolic meanings that blue can be embody.

The scene in which the main character hangs the blue crystal chandelier in her new flat in Paris. This was obviously a significant object to her and held a great deal of meaning, embodying her pain and mourning from the loss of her family. That chandelier was the only item that she carried with her--which I thought was symbolic in that she will always carry at least the memory of loss, pain, suffering, and depression. Immediately after entering her new flat for the first time, she hangs the chandelier in a prominent place--just as her family, and now--her lack thereof, holds a prominent place in her heart.


2. What does blue mean to you? Do they parallel what you think the director was
focused on? How are your thoughts different?

Blue is a color I associate with a number of meanings. Dark, dreary blues I associate with depression, sadness, loss, mourning & pain. At the other end of the spectrum, lighter blues, ie. aqua, remind me of water--not a raging sea, but a tropical oasis. I once painted my bedroom in a calming blue and being surrounded by the color was always soothing to me. The director seemed to focus on the darker, more dreary blue mood--which I think was very effective in helping the viewer to sympathize with the main character’s dark story. This isn’t my favorite way to think of the color blue, then again, I don’t know anyone who would want to ponder the tragic loss of one’s family and crippling depression that might follow...a dark, violent blue does the trick.

3. For the main character, personal loss has a weight that is constant. What do you think the director is suggesting as a way to overcome the pain of such loss? What confrontations seem necessary for the character to have to move on ?

I think that the director is suggesting that to overcome loss, one must make amends with the past, grieve, finish unfinished business, then move on and accept that which one cannot change. In order for the main character to move forward, she had to finish her unfinished business with her husband in the form of the completion of his musical score, confront her husband’s mistress & child, she had to accept that her family’s home would always hold haunting memories of her once happy life--and so she needed to move on, move away and move forward.