Behind The Blog #7 – Colour Up My Life

I love colours. I love the way that colours reflect moods. The way you can use colours to symbolise so many different things. Being a film student and having a passion for art house films, the use of colours is something that I have learnt about. Red, for example, can be used to mean danger, it can be a warning or it can be used to mean love, passion or even anger. Just one colour can change the entire mood and atmosphere of a film and therefore, I feel that it could quite possibly be true that a favourite colour may be indicative of a person’s personality. But I also feel that this theory may be as useful as horoscopes.

Nonetheless, I do like the idea behind the theory and therefore I am taking the time to tell you in this post about my favourite colour and what I think that means about me; if it means anything at all.

For as long as I can remember I have had an ultimate fascination with the colour blue. Not dark blue but light, pastel blue. For me it represents calm. The ocean, the sky, the ever-expanding abyss. I’m not sure why blue is a calming colour but when I see it, when I look at the colour, I can almost feel its calmness. I know that sounds absolutely insane but I honestly don’t care. I think I love it so much because when I see it I’m taken to the ocean hitting the beach or a cloudless sky. It reminds me that there are good things in the world, we just have to stop and remember the beauty of them all.

What I cannot fathom is how blue describes me. I am certainly not a calm person. Or rather, I’m not always a calm person. I’m calmest when I’m on my own either reading a book or writing or watching something. I find an inner peace and I am just me. Calm, happy, at peace. But around others I can become hyper, over-active and simply crazy; definitely not calm. As I write this, I have actually realised that my personality is a lot like the ocean. Sometimes it is at peace, slowly lapping up at the shore but then there are days when it is violent and aggressive (I have angry moments, unfortunately), and then other times it’s simply fast-flowing and moving but isn’t calm or aggressive.

Other interesting things about me that have something to do with colour;

Interesting Fact 1;
I have bluey-green eyes. When I was younger, like the rest of the world, I was born with blue eyes and they stayed that way for a fair few years until eventually a shade of green arrived. Every now and again I’ll look in the mirror and swear I have blue eyes, while other times I can tell that there is definitely a green tint to them. I don’t know if this is, in anyway, connected to my favourite colour or my oceanic personality but it is a fun and interesting fact for you, isn’t it?

Interesting Fact 2;
When asked what my favourite colour was when I was eleven years old I said yellow. I do not remember why anymore but this answer was the reason my shared room (with my little sister) was painted yellow and red. (her favourite colour was red). Obviously these colours complimented each other, more than blue and red would have, and I wonder if I had known this and had simply said yellow was my favourite colour so no arguments were had. (let’s face it, I doted on my little sister).

Interesting Fact 3;
When I was sixteen I had a fascination with the shade, black. Everything I had, wanted or loved was the colour of darkness. It was my pretend “goth” stage, I suppose. But yes, I had black notebooks, black necklaces, I yearned for black hair… it was all the rage, y’know. But eventually I realised how dark the colour was and my light blue pushed it away and took centre stage again. (I do still have a tendency to prefer black over white though).

Interesting Fact 4;
Two colours that I cannot stand are bright luminescent orange and puke-shaded green. Orange hurts my eyes and reminds me of the fruit that I can’t stand to eat and it’s just a horrid looking colour. Green is one of those colours that I like in certain shades but find displeasing in others. Greens that remind me of puke or other yucky bodily fluids are unattractive and I have never quite understood why people love the colour so much.

So there we have it, four interesting facts about me that relate to colours, aren’t you glad you know me just a little bit better?

In relation to books I’m going to be really boring again this week and relate it all back to Harry Potter.

If there was one book that I always associated colours with, it was this series. Red for Gryffindor, Blue for Ravenclaw, Yellow for Hufflepuff and Green for Slytherin. For me these colours shaded my life growing up. Red for the brave, Blue for the smart, Yellow for the loyal and Green for the evil. Not great, I know, but that was just how I saw things for a while.

Aside from this, I can’t really think right now that any other book has really brought a colour to my mind. At least, not right now, but I’ll probably remember after this has gone live and I’ll be hitting my head on the desk. Oh well!

With films… there are just so many films that I have watched that use colour so brilliantly. But here are two directors’ films that I really want to highlight.
I love the way Zhang Yimou uses colour in his films.

• Hero was amazing. With vibrant colours all over the place, it was so easy to see the symbolism that he was trying to get across.
• Raise the Red Lantern was a spectacle. Red was the prominent colour throughout and it signified danger, life and vibrancy. It was a great point of interest for me.
• Curse of the Golden Flower was astonishing. The colours were so bright and brilliant and meant so many different things. I simply loved it so much!

I also love Tim Burton’s use of colour. He may use the same style all the time but I love it.

• Sleepy Hollow is one where he really uses the low tones and red blood splatter effectively. I loved the way it looked.
• Edward Scissorhands was stunning. He really managed to create great contrasts of colour in this film.
• Alice in Wonderland was spectacular. It wasn’t the best adaptation in the world but there is no denying the vibrant colours in this film. I loved it, it was dark yet bright all at the same time!

Really though, all of the films by both of these directors are amazing. Other directors to look out for include Quentin Tarantino, Tomas Alfredson and Wong Kar-Wai.

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