During Julie’s journey from life to death and back to life again, everything in the world seems to be calling out to her, reaching for her in her self-imposed grave, to pull her back toward life, love, and goodness. Of course, the most obvious example of this is the music that breaks into her world all the time, the music that she desperately wants to forget but cannot. But it goes beyond that: chance meetings with strangers and people from the past, a puff of wind blowing her door shut, and a glimpse of herself on the television. Julie is trying to forget, to become like her ailing mother, removed from any reality, any pain, any tears. Everyday is a new day for her mother. For Julie though, in spite of her best efforts, she is painfully aware of the same thing, day in, day out.But it is in this very awareness, in the midst of her pain and suffering that she ultimately finds a kind of grace, resulting in life. Kieslowski’s world is a complicated place, filled with suffering, yet at the same time calling Julie toward new life. Thus, there is this struggle between pushing away and pulling back in. She loves me, she loves me not, indeed. This is both the way of Kieslowski’s world, yet it is also illustrative of Julie’s interaction with her past and those around her – pushing away from her former life, but never for a second being able to resist the urge to reach out for it, to stop the music in her head, to destroy those final mementos of that former life.

What’s interesting about Julie’s choices in the aftermath of the accident is the way in which she ends up cut off from everything and everyone. Even in her extreme moments (most notably the night spent with Olivier), she remains aloof. Her existence after that is very much like a hermit. She speaks as little as possible, goes out rarely, isolates herself from everyone, and descends almost into a kind of nothingness – an attempt to escape memory and thought. It is in her decision (or maybe that’s too active; let’s say experience) of living in this void that she hears and is ultimately able to receive grace.

I cannot help but wonder then, amidst all the noise of normal life, if Julie would even be able to hear the music blasting into her world as she does in the film. Would her surprising encounters with the boy, Olivier, and Lucille have had the kind of impact they did if she had been surrounded by the noise of life? What if she had not been paralyzed by fear of the rat and its babies for days – a fear that eventually pushed her out beyond herself, taking uncertain steps outside her world? What do these questions reveal about her mother, constantly in front of the television, supposedly connected to the world, yet with no idea she’s speaking to her own daughter?

Could it be that Kieslowski is suggesting, with his typical light touch, that Julie’s retreat from the world of the living was somehow necessary to allow the power of grace to pull her back toward life? Had she not done that, instead filling her life with everyday noise and responsibility, what would have become of her? Might she have become her mother, alive, but not really living? It seems that in the end, Kieslowski recognizes the tragedy of suffering, but also its converse: that same suffering works in its own way to bring life. Maybe one will find regret or sadness there. But having walked through such a valley, one also finds a rich and deep appreciation for this life, a belief that things can get better, and a comfort that the world works in such marvelous, life-giving ways.