Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU The film is not a film. It is a radio show. Derek Jarman is dying of AIDS and he tells us how he sees his disease and his coming death. For him the color is blue, because blue is the sky, it is absolute limitless space and it is the perfect color for going to the other side of the gate or door or portal you have to cross on your last breath. After that point you do not need to breathe any more.The story, if it is a story, is poignant but told on a rather desultory tone and with as much poetry as possible. He explains what this disease means for him and probably for many others in his case. He repeats the names of the men he has loved and who may have infected him or who he may have infected. Sad and tragic that love led to death. I say love and I follow Derek Jarman on that term, but in fact it was not love. It was sexual intercourse and most of the time nothing much more in those post 68 years when everything was possible and everyone was doing it. Well everyone, not, really, but many considered promiscuity as a norm and bisexuality as a must. As Derek Jarman says he has to resign himself to the disease and the coming death. The drugs used in those years were very experimental, had tremendous side effects and were nothing but tinkering about with what doctors had under their hands and fingers and research went very slowly, when it was funded, which was not the case everywhere in the world.And then Derek Jarman has to come to terms with his life, what he had done, what he would have done, what he did not do, and he has to build a balance sheet of his work: has he achieved enough for his films to survive his own death? Probably, though some of these films are aging rather fast. And then he has to push suicide aside and he has to cope with the pain and try to find some peace of mind to move on and pass to the other side in serendipity. And his telling his last moments of consciousness on this planet must have helped him to find some catharsis with death.Apart from that the radio show that is behind this constant blue screen is a testimony of a social and human situation and it is nothing else. The testimony is done with great talent but it is being carried away by the wind of time. The situation does not have any duration in itself. It is already in the past for the countries where safe sex is a real objective and the present treatment is available. It will not cure you but it will give you a more or less normal life for quite a good number of years. But it remains necessary to revisit what it was in the past not to slacken our efforts to find a real cure."Glitterbug," that generally accompanies this "Blue," is only a montage and collage of tit bits from Derek Jarman's personal super eight and video documents he left behind after his death. This film is a testimony about him and his work and life in order to pay our respects to the departed filmmaker.Apart from that dimension the film does not really bring anything new about the man or his films. And since it was not professional camera work, it is not even comparable to his work. So this documentary gives us an intimate vision of the man and the people around him and this is a good thing to give some human depth to a man who went away too fast.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Sir_Dancealot I'd have to agree with some of the other comments and say what a bad idea this was. Tedious to the extreme. For a start, cinema should be full of visuals however good or bad, that's the whole point of a visual/audiable medium. It just seems like a self indulgent piece of art. (Though I suppose all films/art is just that) I genuinely thinkthis would make an interesting radio play. But as a cinematic experience it is VERY poor. Watching a blue screen continually for 2 hours would make anyone shuffle in their seat. Can't imagine what the edit must have been like!!! Even the voice over seems a strained and boring though, like someone reading from a book for the first time. A lack of passion almost for the material.For radio 6 out of 10. For Film 3... and that's at a push.

bennybenbenj There is nothing I can write here that hasn't been written before about this film. A masterpiece. A seemingly 'dull' film. A brave and courageous final farewell from a great man.Art for Arts Sake? Ars Gratia Artis? No. Absolutely not. This is a film made by a dying man while practically on his deathbed. His sight robbed of him, what more could an experimental film-maker do? A powerful script telling of his life ('I'm sitting in a cafe....'), the things around him (the cyclist who nearly knocks him over to then hurl abuse at him), his lifestyle (I am a cock sucking straight acting lesbian man, I am a not-gay).Jarman's Voice Over is the most provocative text about one's own death I know of. Of course, he knew he was dying. His doctors told him he was dying. He goes into graphic details of his medications, his symptoms, his pains. Never again can a film maker describe their own death in such a way, Jarman has done it and done it brilliantly.The Blueness also plays a part. After a few minutes I felt angry, annoyed at having to stare at a screen of blue. I tried looking at the floor, closing my eyes, anything to avoid the blue. But I kept looking back.A Masterpiece. Simple as that.

Theo Robertson " Blue . It`s a colour so cruel " sang The Fine Young Cannibals . BLUE by Derek Jarman can`t be described as being cruel in anyway , but that`s probably the kindest thing I can say about this movie , I can find a thousand adjectives none of them complimentary to describe BLUE . The idea of art for arts sake sickens me and the idea of watching a " movie " composed of a blue background with a narrator speaking from everything from Bosnian refugees to death doesn`t appeal to me even if it does contain ambient muzak and sound effects . I do confess that I watched BLUE when it recieved its TV premiere on channel 4 a few years ago but that was only down to the publicity surrounding it and you have to ask if it was made by a mainstream director who was dying from lung cancer would it have been given the same hype ?