Following the film that earned her an award in Cannes, Juliette Binoche also introduced the masterpiece for which she received the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. Krzysztof Kieślowski’s drama Three Colors: Blue remains one of the defining films of the 1990s.
“About two years before filming began, I met a woman who had lost her husband and her son, Justin. So when I read the script for Blue, I wanted to make it. I had met Krzysztof before — he wanted me to play in The Double Life of Véronique, but I couldn’t because I was filming The Lovers on the Bridge. Playing in Blue was easy for me in a way, because I carried Justin within me after hearing so much about him,” she said about her role as a composer’s wife who has lost her family in a car accident.
Binoche considers Blue a remarkable film created by remarkable people: Kieślowski, cinematographer Sławomir Idziak and composer Zbigniew Preisner. It was Preisner who taught her about the process of composing music for the role. According to the actress, the collaboration was full of humour. “Krzysztof was humble, an ordinary hard worker. He focused intensely on details, and it was through those details that he told his stories,” she recalled.
One of Europe’s most important filmmakers died thirty years ago at the age of 54. “We miss him terribly. We were all in shock when he died. As I was getting out of the car in front of the church for his funeral, I said to myself: Krzysztof, give me a sign that you’re all right. And immediately afterwards, there was this incredibly loud blast from a truck horn,” Binoche remembered. “It’s ironic that I’m crying now, because he kept telling me during the filming: No tears. I only cried on set on the first day, during the opening hospital scene,” she smiled and wished the audience in the Grand Hall an enjoyable screening. “Cinema is about sharing.”
