This is an analysis of the use of color in Tau.
I love it when movies use colors, for me it feels like a spice giving the movie flavor and life. It is also a way to stand out from other films. If used correctly it can really enhance a movie. Now there are plenty of ways to use color, for this example we will be looking at the 2018 Netflix movie Tau.
The colors being used in the beginning are the contrasts between red and blue. We start with Julia in a bright red wig and a blue dress.
When she comes home in the beginning, a bright neon light is blinking red and blue. someone later breaks into her apartment and at the moment she is drugged from behind. The light is red when it cuts to the next scene. Red means danger in this sense.
In Alex’s house, the small cleaning droids and Aris (his protector robot) all have red eyes. Indicating danger.
Blue symbolizes a coldness in the personal sense. Alex is associated with his color a lot. The prison Julia is kept in is Blue. Alex eats dinner in blue light. Most of the house is blue when Alex is there.
Tau’s eye is orange. Orange in this film means normal, the natural state, the balance between the two.
When Alex’s heart rate goes up Tau turns on Zen-mode which is orange light and some calming music, indicating he has to return to a more neutral state.
When Julia is imprisoned the cell is blue. She escapes by blowing the cell up with an orange explosion, making things balanced, before everything gets red and dangerous.
At one point Alex gets mad and picks Julia up from an orange room and throws her into a blue room which is his element in front of Aris with the red eyes.
As Tau grows in consciousness he is starting to develop some green in his eye. The more sentient and independent he becomes the more green. At the very end when Julia gets out his whole eye is green, indicating that he is his own master.