Kieslowski hates happy endings, but “Blue” has earned one. I have resisted writing about the closing scenes of this movie for nearly a year, in part because I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with it.

We hear the revised symphony on the soundtrack. It’s beautiful and powerful, in my opinion, one of the all-time great movie scores. And in the first scene of the film’s closing montage, we see Julie and Olivier engaged in some kind of love scene. I noted in another essay about “The Double Life of Veronique” that Kieslowski films love scenes in a bizarre way — and again, it’s impossible to imagine pleasurable sex resulting from this confluence of bodies.

But there’s something else strange about it — it seems to be taking place under water. Or more precisely, in some kind of vessel with a glass enclosure so Julie and Olivier can be looking out into the sea as they make love. I don’t want to spoil the ending of “Three Colours: Red” by saying too much here, but if this is somehow supposed to connect to that series-ending moment, that doesn’t really work in the confines of the plot. Maybe I’ll explain why at the end of “Red.” (And by the way, I adore “Red” and can’t wait to start writing about it, but I have a long way through “The Dekalog” and the bizarre comedy “White” first.)

In the next segment of the montage, the young man with the cross necklace wakes up from his alarm clock at 6:45 a.m. (which is very early for a Parisian, by the way) bathed also in blue light, he rubs the cross as if in appreciation of the gift.

From here, the montage moves to Julie’s mother, staring off into the distance, in a gorgeous camera shot of a reflection, folding into a reflection, folding into the incomparable Emmanuel Riva, bathed in gold, a nurse lit in green approaching behind her.

Next, the camera revisits the sex club and we witness a very sad looking Lucille. I wish Kieslowski could have found a more hopeful ending for her, even if she’s a “sex worker with a heart of gold” movie cliche.

The montage switches to Sandrine, very pregnant, in an exam room, an ultrasound machine showing a very healthy, lively baby boy inside her (probably ready to pop out at any minute.)

But, although as I said, I can’t think of a movie that has earned a happy ending more than “Blue,” Kieslowski can’t quite leave us that way. First, we see a reflection in Olivier’s eye, of Julie sitting in a room, naked, curled up. Very much alone.

And then we reach the end. In a movie where characters have noted that Julie isn’t crying, isn’t mourning, she’s finally given a moment to take it all in and leave it behind. The film’s final shot is of Julie, hands folded to her mouth, silently crying, the music still haunting her, but now not in longing, but in endless sadness.