Blueness

It's officially July, which means it's time to celebrate, in order, patriotism, weddings, and Fake Christmas. In honor of all of that I'd like to showcase Blue Valentine (2010).

Directed by Derek Cianfrance, Blue Valentine is a film about a marriage. Dean and Cindy meet, fall in love; marry, and fall out of it. The divide between the two points is crucial to the film, as is a certain blueness written into script and the imagery.

Image source: http://moviestorrents.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Blue-Valentine-2010.jpg

In this way Cianfrance has constructed a film with the circular quality of perpetual, long-lasting arguments--going around and around. The differences between the two timeframes are otherwise largely circumstantial: Dean's thinning hairline; Cindy's nurse uniform. (The exception is the presence of their child, Frankie.) Their struggles are constant and impenetrable.
As you might imagine, the film carries a tremendous sadness.

Image source: http://www.filmcaptures.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Blue_Valentine_28.jpg

There is no forever love. What love there is, is desperate, quiet--

Image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1KISDanngmJIDU0lvcm7kE8JxXG3SxGNswqALGrUmbUlL4hczEGpb4lkWYJMPuXq_QOhws_tuz5GDkGO82Xzq3jrBIrGruGwzwLw1tLVRDNm5bydLDj29b6VakDM3NtgtiRsvTPe8Qi4/s1600/eGcyczV4MTI=_o_blue-valentine-trailer.jpg

Domestic.

Image source: http://ilarge.listal.com/image/2113095/968full-blue-valentine-screenshot.jpg

Through Dean and Cindy, the film presents not the love story, but a love story.  In the process it memorializes both.


Reading suggestion: "Flick Chicks," by Mindy Kaling