I have never seen them before (I honestly never even heard of them, how come?) and I shall watch the rest of the trilogy soon because I really liked Blue. I'm amazed at how much you get to know the characters and how deeply considering how little screen time they all get. We only get to see the cleaning lady once or the boy only twice, but they still feel real. I guess that's the difference between having characters for the sake of advancing the plot and having characters because they bring something to the narrative.
I just watched it again and I have to agree that the characters are very rich despite little dialog. It's fantastic writing/directing. There isn't a tremendous amount of dialog because with great acting, words aren't as necessary. Juliet Binoche is absolutely incredible in this. But then, all of the actors are. Julie to the cleaning lady: Why are you crying? Cleaning lady: Because you are not. Welp, that was officially the moment that I started crying. This film was gorgeous to look at, the pacing was fantastic, the acting superb and the subject matter compelling on many levels. It has political metaphors, personal loss and redemption and tons of symbolism throughout. I enjoyed every minute and every scene. I had watched this about 9 or 10 years ago and recalled enjoying it then, but I have to say that now, as a father, it had a much more profound impact on me. I can't imagine that loss, I don't want to even try. Edit: It's worth noting that the music in this film is dialog. Pretty amazing stuff. In the previous post about this film, pseydtonne wrote: Oh dear. Look, I want to warn everyone that hasn't seen it already: Blue is weak enough that it'd put you off from seeing White or anything else by the director. This would be a mistake, because White is some superb, compelling story-telling.
Here's a warning: I think someone held a gun to the film editor's head and said "fade to black, but keep the sound rolling... and fade back up on the same damn scene. See, that's ART!"
-I completely disagree. You wisely note that the sound is still rolling. This accompanied by the "fading to black," thrusts us in to the dialog of music occurring. We get a glimpse in to Julie's fantastic mind. Is it ART!? -Yep, some of the best art I've encountered in a good long while. I would be (and am) encouraged to watch White and Red now, and my guess is that others would be too.