Three Colours: Blue (1993), Krzysztof Kieslowski

The first film on the director’s great trilogy before his death, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1993 Three Colours: Blue is poignant and profound, not only on its intended theme about liberty, but also on honesty, grief and, ultimately, how one reinvents oneself after tragedy.

Though it might strike as a cliché, it has to be noticed that Julie, the film’s protagonist, is both the epitome of vulnerability and the utmost show of strength. As she is virtually in every scene of Three Colours: Blue [Trois Couleurs: Bleu], viewers experience a gamut of emotions, from her quivering lips while watching on TV as her family is being buried to the self-satisfied smile as she squander her inheritance on the housekeeper and the gardener. Her enigmatic outlook increases the impression that she can be an angel or the devil.

Hidden (2005), Michael Haneke

A multi-layered parable dressed as a thriller, Michael Haneke’s 2005 Hidden, delves into the historical subconscious of the European colonizer, swims at the bottom of media manipulation, and when it comes up for air, with blood in its teeth, it does not offer any answers.

By the end of Hidden [Caché], after Georges has been terrorized by events which climax with the suicide of an old acquaintance, he lies in his bed and envelopes himself in a blanket, almost as if trying to recapture some womb-like comfort. He lies in there but probably does not have a clue who’s made that bed. We, instead, can fathom that this feeling of angst and dread haunting him is, in fact, self-inflicted.