Three Colors: Blue: the protagonist of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s drama loses her husband (a famous composer) and daughter in a car accident and, in her grief, decides to break clean and live an independent but emotionally aloof life. The story is emotionally rich, made even more potent by the film’s strong visual identity, beautiful musical score, and the powerful performance by Juliette Binoche. She plays a woman in clear suffering, trying to distance herself from her story to dull her pain; it’s a quiet but extremely effective piece of acting. Cinematographer Sławomir Idziak creates expressive imagery, with strong use of colour (with an obvious focus on the title colour) and excellent framing; editor Jacques Witta complements it well, giving the film a nice pace and accentuating the protagonist’s mental state. Music is naturally very relevant to the story, and composer Zbigniew Preisner’s central piece is stunning.