Blue

Derek Jarman should be put into the discussion with Uwe Boll and Ed Wood as one of the worst filmmakers of all time. He really wants to be an artist, and trys so so hard, but it's just pointless crap. Who the hell wants to stare at a blue screen for 80 minutes? But this film was apparently about AIDS so therefore people have to pretend to care, even though no one does. It's sad when people confuse art with a gimmick.

This made me cry. It's Jarman's artistry at its pinnacle, truly. RGB blue functioning as the infinite, the unknown, the sublime, the end. The sound design, the tempo, it's all so poetic and evokes the body in the most gripping ways. It shows the pluralism inherent to the medium, even with the most limited of materials. It's amazing.

dunno why this was called blue when the screen was just green the whole time. EDIT: turns out i’m colourblind

Presenting an audience with no visual stimulation is as bold a move as any to demonstrate the reality of Jarman's encroaching blindness, and it's a heartfelt experiment for sure, but despite some poetic highlights, there is little of much interest in the text and it all becomes a drag rather quickly.

I rate this at 50, not because I thought it mediocre, but because I find it unrateable and 50 is neutral ground. Essentially, one might just as well have released this on a record and made the cover entirely blue with some sort of instructional sticker telling you to stare at the dour fucker throughout. Point being, this didn't strictly have to be a movie but Jarman was a filmmaker so here we are. The script and the reading thereof is wonderful, though.

"Kiss me on the lips, the eyes. Our name will be forgotten. In time, no one will remember our work. Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the Sun, for our time is the passing of a shadow, and our lives will run like sparks through the stubble. I place a delphinium, blue, upon your grave." Witty and rueful. Incredibly moving, exhausting, harrowing, engulfing.

These types of experimental concept films can be pretty hit or miss, and this one is a hit for me. Maybe it's because was in that perfect half awake state where I could just let the narration wash over me and create imagery for everything that was being said, but the experience was very unique and engaging. A few segments didn't work but overall I quite liked it.

Fantastic concept but let down by the detail of the sound design

A podcast episode about a dying man who still has some anger issues to resolve during his poetry slam. The blue is nice, but not eighty-minutes-nice to look at. Having just watched the Qatsi trilogy and spending a lot of time wondering what I was watching, I wonder if I might have liked this more if there was a wavery blue, like you were almost seeing something but wasn't sure what it was.

This is obviously an intensely personal project, and some of the sound design is really good. It's best when it's autobiographical and worst when it gets into pretentious poetry. The autobiographical stuff is quite impactful, but the pretentious poetry stuff is extremely eye rolly. Overall, I think it falls toward the eye rolly side more often than not, which is too bad, because I think this could have been very good if it was more the literal personal experiences with the sound design.

explores the phenomenology of sight itself, how does it feel to see/look, do your eyes hurt? how it is to be blind/blinded? what is it when people disappear and all you have left is there names? (no point in seeing this outside of a theater)

Probably should be experienced in a museum/exhibition format on a huge scale.

Haunting soundscape of a dying man.

This movie blue

This was my introduction to Jarman & I was actually pleasantly surprised. I was aware of this only for its avant-garde "gimmick" & have always struggled with a compulsory disdain for such things. Even if you have an open mind this still might not work but for me it did, to an extent. The overwhelming vastness of the blue screen starts to play tricks with your senses & imagination (big screen recommended) & considering the subject matter it's actually a very touching & earnest cinematic gesture.

A deeply empathetic artistic statement. Blue's perverse profundity stems from its seemingly anti-cinematic conception of the frame as an unwavering field of color (Yves Klein's blue), in which all possibilities are present: the specificity of Jarman's tragic circumstances, of which he speaks with intensely personal rage and sadness, flower into something universal. It contains my own visions of cloudless skies and oceans, the horizon where they meet, sheets I've slept in, dreams I've had...

(...) Immer war Jarman fasziniert vom Mythischen, vom Religiösen. Die Schönheit des heroischen Leids - betrifft es nicht auch den Kampf des Homosexuellen?(...)

The concept is interesting, but some parts don't work. The perpetual blue image might either force you to listen or enable your mind to wander and be distracted, which might be a problem.

what Pickpocket said. (too bad they couldn't come up with something more appropriate for the icon picture next to the rating. oh well.)

PV

Blue estreava há 30 anos nos EUA. O filme definitivo sobre a epidemia de AIDS e a grande obra-prima do Jarman. Não é um filme pra vermos todo ano, mas a cada vez que revejo é um novo choque de realidade. MKO.