My Movie Biography: 2011 and How I Came to Love Jessica Chastain

(2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) 2011. The bestest year ever. Well, in my life so far, but it is not like I have that many years to compare it to. It is kinda hard to write about a year so close to this one, but lemme tell ya, tomorrow is going to be even harder. Anyway, hope you're enjoying the series, and mark your calendars for Sunday. Big things are going to be happening!

• I went down to Wellington for a week with my best bud. It was fun. We went to the cinemas like, four times. I usually never go to the cinemas more than three times on my holidays (I know it is really bad, but hey, I'm in a big city, so how can I refuse that?) We went and saw Tron: Legacy (which we didn't really like), The Social Network (because somehow it was still in cinemas), Morning Glory and Unstoppable. It was so fun!
• One of the worst experiences I've ever had was watching Eat Pray Love when it was excruciatingly hot. That movie is by no means short. And it just does not stop. Ever. Okay it does, but it literally felt like I'd missed Christmas by the time it ended. 
• I get very nostalgic over that summer because I spent the entire thing to the tunes of The Social Network's soundtrack. Sometimes I just listen to 'Painted Sun in Abstract' and it takes me back to those happy times. And then I look outside and it has just started hailing for the fifth time (we are supposed to be in spring).
• That awards season was crazy. It was the first year I really got into it, even managing to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before the show. My love for certain movies changed so much during this awards season. First of all, I kinda resented The Social Network for being more popular than Inception. But what did I really expect? I thought that The Social Network was just gonna sail through and win everything. Then The King's Speech won the PGA. Everyone was now like "The King's Speech for Best Picture!" So I promptly realised that Inception wasn't going to win anything, I went and saw The King's Speech and thought it was pretty average, and then I became team The Social Network. From there on I became the biggest raging The Social Network fan on the planet. Every time I heard The King's Speech mentioned, I would fake gagging reflexes. I knew it was well over when The King's Speech won the SAG, but I refused to let go of the hope that The Social Network might take that award home. My friends and I gathered around the TV and watched The King's Speech win Best Picture. I may have cried.
  Those Oscars tore apart my life, man. Which I realise is pretty silly considering everyone in the blogging world hates the Oscars (seriously, they're still my favourite part of the year). Now I can tolerate The King's Speech, even though I still feel those twangs of pain whenever I hear it mentioned. As I said last night, I still can't decide between Inception and The Social Network being my favourite film of 2010. Ah, to look at things with a clear head...

Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy

These days, when we hear about series of films, they're usually action films that just have the sequels piled on to see how much money that can be squeezed out of the average cinema-goer. However, back in the day (we're talking 1993-1994 here), there was a Polish director called Krzysztof Kieślowski. He made a trilogy based on the ideas of the three colours in the French flag: blue for liberty, white for equality and red for fraternity. They each had different characters and different stories, and at first glance the films are only connected by their titles. Nevertheless, the trilogy as a whole is a brilliant piece of work. Let me give each of the films a small review each, as no measure of my writing could ever do these films justice:

Three Colours: Blue

Juliette Binoche is the lead here, playing Julie, a woman who has just lost her husband and child in a car crash. She doesn't seem to be dealing with it that well, and sets out to paralyse her emotions and basically 'disappear' from the world. However, she finds that while she is trying to cut herself off from her former life, she can not cut off her human connections, and as she tries to live in isolation she finds out the truth about her late husband. The film deals with the theme of 'liberation' by showing that Julie is liberated after her husband and child die. This isn't necessarily a good thing, but I couldn't help but think of a particular quote to describe Julie, ironically from another Juliette Binoche movie, Certified Copy: "my family lives their lives and I live mine." This particularly becomes more evident as the film wears on, as Julie finds out the truth and desperately tries to live her own life. Binoche is amazing, as always, here, with her face doing a large majority of the acting. I didn't think that Julie was a particularly likeable character but it's easy to feel what she is going through, which is thanks to Binoche's calculated performance. However, the biggest star of this movie for me was the music. The music played a vital role in the movie, often being used as a narrative device. It was beautiful music, indeed.

Three Colours: White

This one is generally perceived as the worst of the trilogy, but that doesn't mean that it is at all bad. I actually found this one far more enjoyable than Blue, as that movie was occasionally quite pretentious (sorry to any arthouse fans which I may have offended with the use of that word, but that's my opinion), yet this movie was a black comedy, a genre which I genuinely enjoy. I felt like this movie took itself seriously enough to not be taken seriously, which was a strange thing, but I liked what Kieślowski did here. Ultimately, it's a saddening tale, particularly as our hero Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is given the job of assisting a man's suicide. Also, the end is a particularly memorable one, which I felt sad about at first, but then I also realised how much it showed the film's theme of equality. I can't figure out whether that equality was cruel or fair, which of course got me thinking a little bit about equality and how strange it is. The problem I had with White was the fact that it didn't have a strong story like Blue and Red, and it was a little different in tone compared with the other two. While it is probably the worst film of the lot (it is still really good), I'm tempted to say that White is the most accessible out of the three. It is rather entertaining and occasionally deeply affecting. In the strangest of ways.

Three Colours: Red

Red is hands down my most favourite film out of the trilogy, and will definitely be making it's way into the higher section of my favourite films of all time. The reason why I loved Red so much was because it tells the story of something which I often think about: how different people's lives interconnect in the most mysterious ways. The way that Kieślowski makes the story of the retired judge Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and the beautiful model Valentine (Irene Jacob) parallel with the story of student Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) and his girlfriend Karin (Frederique Feder) is intriguing. It really got me thinking of how strangely different lives can parallel each other and how fate and destiny can control some things. I just found a lot more to mull over with Red, which is something that hadn't happened to me with Blue and White. It actually seems to cover everything, much like I believe that The Tree of Life tried to do, but it did this with a lot more ease and fluidity. Maybe it's not a film about existence for anyone else, and maybe I just read a little too far into it. But it took me another watch early this morning to fully realise the many things that this film was trying to say, which was as satisfying as ever. Red is a masterpiece, pure and simple. And that final twist is shocking, with the final image etched in my memory forever. I blame Kieślowski and his work with Red for making me walk around all day like I'm part of a French arthouse film.

What I got for Blue and White:

What I got for Red:

Have you watched this trilogy? What did you think of the films?