Amazon.com

The first installment of the late Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy on Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, the three colors of the French flag. Blue is the most somber of the three, a movie dominated by feelings of grief. As the film begins, a car accident claims the life of a well-known composer. His wife, played by Juliette Binoche (Oscar winner for The English Patient), does not so much put the pieces of her life back together as start an entirely new existence. She moves to Paris, where she dissolves into a wordless life virtually without other people. Kieslowski attaches an almost subconscious significance to the color blue, but primarily he focuses on Binoche's luminous face, and the way her subtle shifts in emotion flicker and disappear. The picture may be more enigmatic than the follow-ups White and Red, but Binoche's quiet, heartbreaking presence becomes spellbinding; her performance won the best actress prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1993. --Robert Horton ... Read more

Reviews (57)

A brilliant shade of "Blue"
Director Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blue" is the first of a trilogy of films which take their title from the colors of the french flag (blue, white, and red) and their theme from the French motto of "liberty, equality, fraternity." In this achingly beautiful interpretation, liberty comes as the result of loss.

The film opens in a shroud of bluish fog, as Julie (Juliette Binoche), her husband Patrice and their young daughter are on a car trip. Because of the fog, the Alfa Romeo continues to go straight when the road curves, and the car collides with a tree. Only Julie survives.

Although her bandages and bruises disappear rather quickly, Julie's emotions take much longer to heal. The rest of the movie is an eloquent, moving look at how she deals with the aftermath of her loss, from the seemingly trivial annoyance of finding mice in her new apartment to the discovery that her husband had kept a mistress for years.

She tries to repress her emotions by freeing herself from her past: she sells the contents of her country estate and moves to a small apartment in a section of Paris where no one knows her, signing the lease with her maiden name. All she brings with her, besides books and clothes, is a chandelier of dripping blue crystals, a prism which refracts the past.

As one would guess from the title, the color blue washes over this movie, tinting it with melancholy. But more striking than the film's use of color is its music. Patrice was a famous composer who was writing a concerto to celebrate the unification of Europe at the time of his death. Although Julie destroys his notes after his death, his secretary had made a copy and sent it to his partner, Olivier (Benoit Regent), who is now working to complete the unfinished symphony.

Throughout the movie, whenever Julie's emotions well up within her, strains of the concerto flood the movie -- the screen goes black so the viewer, too, focuses only on the music, which seems to express at once both the anguish and release that Julie feels.

Through Kieslowski's cinematography and Binoche's subtle facial expressions, the viewer is immersed in the understated emotion of the film -- an immersion that does not end when the credits roll, for the film leaves a few issues unresolved that make it, like its main character, such a captivating enigma. END

Unique Blue
Blue by Krzysztof Kieslowski is one of those movies that you have to be in the right mood to watch it, in order to better understand it and like it. The story is not as simple as it seems to be. Julie looses her husband and a little daughter in a car accident, she sells their house and everything they had, and dissapears. Of course, life and death themes are inseperable from all Kieslowki's movies, but this one goes deeper than his other ones. Blue shows how unexpected things happen to everybody, how, most of the time, we are lost in our lives, and how nothing is predictible. Blue is about love, different kinds of love; about hate, about all those feeling we have inside us, but hardly ever talk about. Blue can be a sad story, and make you depress, or if you watch it from another perspective it will have a positive effect on you. That is what makes this movie so unique- each time you try to analyze it, you will discover something new, because it has so many different meanings. Simply fascinating! Juliette Binoche's acting is wonderful. Zbigniew Preisner's music is breathtaking. Blue is a real masterpiece!

Elegant philosophical exploration
The most obvious association we have with blue is depression. In the three colours of the French Republic, blue stands for freedom. Trois Couleurs : Bleu is about both. More precisely, it is an exploration of what personal freedom means, and if we can find it in a social context where we cannot live without relationships.

The female character of Bleu is Julie (played by Juliette Binoche), who is part of a car accident where her husband and daughter both die. The husband was a famous composer, and was working on a piece for the European Union's inauguration : his co-worker is in love with her and becomes her very temporary lover. As in "The Sweet Hereafter", the accident is not a focal point made to display special effects, but a motor of narrative. Julie desires to start a new life where she has no more links to anything.

While it is laudable to once again see a moral balance being drawn, it is tiring to see how much movie-makers want to make their characters start from a position of over-independence, instead of over-dependence. About a Boy is another good example. Nevertheless, Blue provides an elegant philosophical exploration of the same issues, superior in most ways to the latter movie.

In some ways it is also spiritual : not only in the beautiful esthetics of the movie or how it shows the interconnections people's lives, but it is also hard not to compare Julie's attempts at complete detachment with the most moderate eschewing of attachment as proposed by Buddhist doctrine (indeed, the ending of Bleu could be interpreted as supporting this moderate view).

Kieslowski's "Blue" period
Blue is the color of sadness and depression. And "Blue" ("Bleu") is the first film in the celebrated Colors trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Accompanying the rich "Red" ("Rouge") and sharp "White" ("Blanc"), this is a beautiful and haunting look at grief and getting past it.

Julie de Courcy (Juliette Binoche) and her family are in a car accident when their brakes fail. Julie is injured, but her composer husband and their daughter die. She can't bring herself to commit suicide, but neither can she just go home and get over it. So instead she leaves her palatial house in the country after a night with her husband's old friend Olivier (Benoît Régent), who has been in love with her for years.

Julie arrives in Paris with nothing but a blue cut-glass lampshade, takes back her maiden name, rents an apartment, and tries to leave her old life behind. Though she says she doesn't want love or friends (because they are "traps"), she befriends a promiscuous young woman and is pulled back to Olivier when he starts to finish her husband's unfinished work. In turn, Olivier reveals to her the side of her husband she never knew -- the other woman he loved.

The Colors trilogy is based on the colors of the French flag: Blue, white and red, standing respectively for liberty, equality, and fraternity. In this, Julie is unconsciously seeking liberty from her past life and her grief. This grief is shown beyond mere tears and unhappiness. She rakes her knuckles over a rough wall, rips off a strand off the hanging lampshade, as little ways of showing her inner turmoil. At the same time, the revelations about Julie's husband raises questions about their marriage and about Julie herself.

The powerful music celebrating the EU pops up periodically, often when Julie experiences strong emotion. At times, the screen goes dark, and the overwhelming, soaring symphony is all you can detect. And as Kieslowski does in "White" and "Red," this film is sprinkled with color and symbolism. Blue crops up in little dancing bars of light on Julie's face, in her clothing, a swimming pool, in rain-slicked windows, a misty blue morning and a lollipop.

This may be Binoche's best performance. Her expressive eyes and subtle facial expressions convey every tormented or peaceful emotion that Julie feels. One of the best shots in the entire movie is the final one, in which we see Julie, unhappy and tearful, slowly starting to smile. (She also is shown weeping underwater, something I've never seen before) Régent seems rather colorless beside Binoche's reverberating performance, but his quiet, sweet Olivier is an underrated character.

A harrowing, beautiful and ultimately romantic film, "Blue" brims over with pathos and beautiful direction. A true piece of cinematic art.

A film about human connection
The film can be seen in different levels, beautifully acted by the Juliet Binoche. It has great piece of cinematography, and use of lights to portray emotions and state of mind.
On one level, the film is about a woman, in early 30s, lost her husband (a renowned composer) and her child in an accident. Devastated by the loss, she tried to deny her past and shelved herself in solitary existence. She occasionally tested herself, to test her capacity to feel, with failure, desperate to forget his past, left her family house, instructed her attorney to make arrangement to sell the house, and settled in a small, cozy parisan apartment. She lived in her apartment, away from everybody. Her only contacts to the world was her mother an Alzheimer patient, living in an old age home. A live contrast with her present situation, when she is trying to forget her past, her mother, an Alzheimer patient living with a permanent oblivious memory. She eventually comes back to accept her existence through series of events that unfolds. In another plane the film is about connection. One is living so long he/she can connect to his/her surroundings. In the café, when she listens to the tune of the flutist, which he claimed to invent alone, the tune which is similar to composition that her husband was working, immediately connects her to her husband, her loss and present state of mind. This was beautifully displayed by niece piece of cinematography, as lights and shades goes warmer and warmer, when she started connecting the tune to herself. There are similar pieces in the story, which again forces her to connect to her world, her associations and so forth. The theme was nicely projects in the last scene, when the images of the different characters, association passed floating on the screen. These connections allowed her to rejuvenate the will to live. Kieslowski's various other movies, like RED, Double Life of Veronica, centered around this theme of strange human connections, not very obvious, but in certain metaphysical plane. In this context his films actually took a flight in a spiritual plane. The meaning of human existence is in connection with the surroundings. It can transcends the life from pain and sufferings. ... Read more

Reviews (28)

BEAUTIFUL AND HAUNTING
Irene Jacob stars in the dual role of Veronika, a Polish singer with a heart condition, and Veronique, a French puppeteer, who has some inexplicable connection this Polish version of herself. It is an interesting exploration of Veronique's life after Veronika dies, and of how Veronique feels a profound sense of loss at the death of her twin. This film was directed by Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski just before he made his Bleu, Blanc, Rouge trilogy. While this film is a bit oblique and hard to follow at times, it is worthwhile for its dark and fascinating subject matter and the sensual treatment of the scenery and characters. Also notable is the gorgeous soundtrack by frequent Kieslowski collaborator Zbigniew Preisner.

Surreal and too beautiful. Don't miss it.
Surreal and too beautiful.

To say this is 'one of the most beautiful movies and Kieslowski is a genius' is stating the obvious. It is a dream and ... who else to dream about, other than the beautiful Irene Jacob!

Irene herself is a dream in this movie as she portrays two gifted look-alike musicians, sharing the names Veronique (in France) and Weronika (in Poland). They share the same ill-health, destiny and sadness. And they share an unknown effect on each other's life, despite being worlds apart. The inexplicable depression that Veronique feels when Weronika dies while performing on a stage, makes you ponder 'whether in my life I too wasn't depressed for some or other inexplicable reasons?' 'Is there another I somewhere concerned about me?' 'Is that why I was sad during that time?' 'Is someone else sharing my sorrows being somewhere in this world?' 'Will I meet him/her sometime? Somewhere?' Yes, unanswerable questions, inexplicable feelings and surrealistic thoughts. That sums up this movie.

There is an excellent sub-plot too, a puppet and its master. It is very symbolic and highly metaphorical. I still don't think I understood it properly. The music is haunting. Like the violin in "Un Couer en Hiver", Veronique's vocal music stikes chord with you. It is enchanting and sad at the same time. Close your eyes and you are drowned in dreams!

Irene Jacob is dreamy and natural, aimless, sympathetic, gorgeous, child-like innocent and sexy at the same time. She definitely deserves all the awards for her stunning double role.

'La double vie de Veronique' comes out with flying colours when compared with Kieslowski's much acclaimed colour trilogy (White, Blue and Red). Watch this movie seriously, you will enjoy it. Thank you Kieslowski!

"Double Life," twice the beauty
One of Krzysztof Kieslowski's finest films is "The Double Life of Veronique" ("La Double vie de Véronique"). It's not just a philosophical, arty film, but a subtle and unique tale full of Kieslowski's directorial magic, and gives Irène Jacob a chance to shine in her most challenging role.

There are two women, the Polish Weronika and the French Veronique (both played by Irène Jacob). They have never met, never spoken, and do not know that the other exists. They share the same losses and the same health. Weronika is a singer, and Veronique is taking singing lessons. But their lives and souls are bound together, and their personalities are yin-yang opposites, one practical and one a stargazer.

What is more, each has the strange feeling that she is, somehow, not alone in the world. One night, Weronika dies onstage while singing. Suddenly in France, Veronique is stricken with a strange feeling, and stops taking her lessons. Weronika has died, but she still lives. Soon she begins to explore, searching for the truth about her double life, and a strange puppeteer who somehow is a link between both girls.

"Double Life of Veronique" is one of those rare films that just begs to be analyzed. Is it about being puppets in some enormous scheme of things? About fate? Sacrifice? Love? One woman's soul in two bodies? Political symbolism? Or is it simply about some mysterious dimension of the spiritual? The symbols and metaphors can be unwound any which way, and in the end they all work. Even the ending is ambiguous -- is it happy, or sad?

Krzysztof Kieslowski's direction is impeccable. His use of light and shadow, and the atmospheric music, make "Double Life" practically a work of art. He dots "Double Life" with plenty of little hints about the inner states of the characters. The stars and leaves, for example, hint at the personalities of Weronika and Veronique -- one a dreamer, one down-to-earth. Kieslowski also used a minimalist approach to dialogue, often using pauses and silence that speak louder than the ordinary words.

At times this film seems like a love letter on film to Irène Jacob. Not only is she followed constantly by the camera, but her character is difficult but rewarding. Jacob shines without really seeming to, with the emotion and wonder of a small child in an adult body. Philippe Volter's aura of mystery adds to his excellent acting in his too-brief scenes. Unfortunately, few of the other characters are given much dimension -- the whole focus is on Weronika and Veronique.

This bewitching tale of love, loss, and interconnected souls winds a spell around this film. Interpret it as you will. Kieslowski's "Double Life of Veronique" is exquisite.

Unforgettable
Some movies inexplicably stick to your mind and make you return to them over and over again. Just like "Unbearable lightness of being" this movie posses that quality. Nothing much happens in it. But little that does touches you in a very personal and emotional way. Beautiful, quiet masterpiece of a brilliant director. Definate must see for anyone who likes European cinema.
Red, White and Blue are also wonderful movies by the same director.

Veronique - a work of great beauty and mystery
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Perhaps there is a double life in each of us. The life we lead and the life we might have led.

In this superbly crafted film the late director Kielowski poses a series of questions about why we became who we are.

it seems that ultimately we are creatures subject to the vagaries of fate, destiny and random chance.

Irene Jacob is simply superb in the dual-role lead.

Director Kielowski was at his probing, questioning best as he mapped out this journey that compels us until the very end.

"La Double Vie de Veronique"is a film more about suggestion than substance.

Like life itself, it hints at mysteries for which there are no answers.

"La Double Vie de Veronique" is art of a high order.

FIVE STARS for the sheer beauty and mystery of it. ... Read more

Amazon.com

White is the second of witty Polish director KrzysztofKieslowki's "three colors" trilogy Blue, White, and Red--the three colors of the French flag, symbolizing liberty, equality, and fraternity. White is an ironic comedy brimming over with the hard laughs of despair, ecstasy, ambition, and longing played in a minor key.

Down-and-out Polish immigrant Karol Karol is desperate to get out of France. He's obsessed with his French soon-to-be ex-wife (Before Sunrise's Julie Delpy), his French bank account is frozen, and he's fed up with the inequality of it all. Penniless, he convinces a fellow Pole to smuggle him home in a suitcase--which then gets stolen from the airport. The unhappy thieves beat him and dump him in a snowy rock pit. Things can only get better, right? The story evolves into a wickedly funny antiromance, an inverse Romeo and Juliet. Because it's in two foreign languages, the dialogue can be occasionally hard to follow, but some of the most genuinely funny and touching moments need no verbal explanation. --Grant Balfour ... Read more

Reviews (23)

Mouse's revenge
Mouse's revenge

WHITE is one in a trilogy of French films also comprising BLUE and RED.

As the film opens, Polish emigre Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) arrives in a Parisian court for his divorce hearing. His wife, the ravishing Dominique (Julie Delpy), is giving him the toss because he no longer satisfies her sexually, although she admits he was hot stuff when they first met in Warsaw.

After the dissolution of the marriage is decreed, Dominique dumps Karol's possessions, all contained in a large trunk, into the car park and drives off. Karol soon discovers that she's also cut off his access to their joint bank account. Karol, now down and out and soliciting handouts in the Paris Metro, absorbs the abuse without any overt sign of anger, even after his ex figuratively pushes his nose into the fact that she's copulating with another man. Karol is the meekest and most inoffensive of men. Let's not mince words; he's a wimp.

With the help of another Pole, Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos), Karol returns to Warsaw by an unusual route. Once arrived, he literally ends up in a ditch. Rock bottom is a hard place.

Karol is an award-winning hairdresser, and he begins working in his brother's beauty shop. Through good luck and a series of shrewd moves unrelated to the hair trade, he becomes rich. And it's also clear that he remains obsessed with Dominique.

WHITE is somewhat less subtle than BLUE, and therefore demands less cerebral exercise on the part of the viewer; BLUE tries too hard to be obscure. Karol is an enormously endearing character, much like a puppy that's been kicked. And, though we don't know what his grand strategy is, we recognize that he has a plan that he's clearly implementing. The lovely Juliette Binoche in BLUE is a more aloof figure as she struggles to recover from a family tragedy, and it's only from close-ups of her face that the audience can infer what's going on inside. WHITE is thus, to this viewer, the more satisfying of the two.

Zamachowski's performance is solid, and Mikolaj is the friend that anybody could hope for. And Delpy's Dominique is eye candy that would drive any sober man on a fevered quest.

It's said that revenge is a dish that's best eaten cold, and WHITE suggests such a meal. The very last scene strongly implies, however, that Karol ultimately lacks the requisite dispassion.

The most under-rated of the 'Three Colours' trilogy.
'White' is a refreshing improvement on its portentous predecessor 'Blue', a dazzling tragicomedy about an impotent Polish hairdresser, Karol, who is unceremoniously divorced by his Parisian wife, thrown out onto the streets without a sou, a possport or much French. Busking on the Metro, he meets a fellow Pole, the lugubrious Mikolaj, who smuggles him back to their home country. Determined to exact revenge on his wife, Karol begins to trade very profitably on the black market.

Maybe it's because Kieslowski is back in Poland, but 'White' is a much 'lighter' film than its predecessor, not in the sense of insubstantial, but in the director's relaxing the grip of his elaborate style, allowing his effects emanate from his story, his wonderful characters and the Polish landscape overlooking the post-communist embrace of (crooked) Western capitalism. Though still glossy compared to his earlier films, the relentless striving for poetic preciosity that marred 'Blue' is checked. Perhaps the return to Poland allowed Kieslowski to make an authentically East European film, a kind of absurdist shaggy dog story, its black comedy aching with anguish. The almost-ridiculous, little-man clown-hero could have bumbled from Gogol or Kafka (or silent cinema?), rumpled, besuited, a bit roly-poly, self-important despite being victim to a fate with a very sick, humiliating sense of humour - his admiring gaze at one of the film's many pigeons ends with dirt sliming down his shirt, just before a court appearance; the bank teller who cuts his frozen credit card is suitably, bureaucratically, inexorably faceless.

The film's comic tension emerges from the disparity between the character's unintentional individuality, his being made seem eccentric because of the unfortunate things inflicted on him, and others' reaction to him; and his dehumanisation, both comically, as he is smuggled by suitcase to Poland, a devalued commodity fetish, only to be purloined by airport thieves, and, more bleakly, in the hardening of his soul as he becomes more successful at being a capitalist - the ironic message of 'White' seems to be that money and power is the key to sexual potency. Karol's natural self was deemed a social failure, so he has to play a part, even if it risks killing his soul, even if he must play a corpse, become his own ghost though he tries to assert the primacy of his body. His progress is symbolised in the film by the importance of language (translating, interpreting and misunderstanding), with epiphany only possibly with its transcendence in a physical, non-verbal communication, perhaps the human equivalent of what Kieslowski tried to do in his films, reach viewers through pure cinema.

Like 'Blue', and all his films, 'White' is structured around recurring and reconfigured imagery - birds, suitcases, glass, statues, combs, 'lucky' coins, snow etc., - but, again, because they belong to the story's world, rather than being imposed on it by a style, they seem much more effective.

'White' isn't perfect - the plot is damaged by nagging implausibilities, and the film certainly dips in the second half, but that's inevitable after the fleet comic energy preceeding it, swept along by the tango melodies of Zbigniew Preisner's score, a welcome contrast to the bombast of 'Blue', and again more rooted to place. Once again, Kieslowski's irony, his play with viewpoint and fantasy, suggests we don't take his images or plot developments at face value.

The power games we play
A story about the power games we play, it pits Karol Karol, a polish hairdresser, against his ex-wife Dominique. The story begins in France, where Dominique is on home ground and controls the situation : she begins setting fire to her own salon, getting the police on his tail. Left with nothing, Karol finds a kindred spirit and manages to smuggle himself back to Poland in a suitcase. There, he works at his father's salon and manages to get back on track.

The theme of equality, second word of the French slogan, is evident here perhaps as a statement that equality does not reflect reality, and that we are engaged constantly in a search for the upper hand, and that life is for the opportunist. This may be seen as either pessimistic or itself an opportunity, depending on your view of life.

Stark "White"
White can be pure or empty, bleak or beautiful. And "White" is also the second volume of Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors Trilogy," a witty and sharp tragicomedy about revenge. It's also the weak point hanging between the melancholy "Blue" and vibrant "Red," with its less likable characters and more unbelievable plotline.

Hairdresser Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is being coldly divorced by his beautiful wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) because she is sexually dissatisfied with him. She also strips him of his money and possessions, leaving him playing pitiful music at the subways. What's more, she rubs it in his face that she's now having sex with other men.

Things can't get worse, right? Wrong: Karol goes back to Poland and ends up getting beaten up and robbed. Via some not-so-legal methods, Karol builds himself an impressive fortune and becomes determined to get back at his cold, manipulative ex-wife. Amid a web of killing, seduction and faked death, Karol finds the perfect method to bring Dominique down...

"White" is certainly a successful black comedy -- it's sort of weirdly, freakily funny. Unfortunately, it's also the weakest of Kieslowski's "Colors" movies -- some of the plot devices seem too unbelievable (like Karol shipping himself in a trunk), and the tricks and twists of the plot are a little too much to swallow. However, the twisted love/hate relationship between Dominique and Karol is fascinating, and Karol's revenge is devilishly clever for what seems like a nice, goofy little man.

White is the color of wedding dresses and various other marriage-related things. But here, it's nothing so nice: an anti-color, a space where color isn't. It's snow, it's emptiness, it's colorless, it's passionless. Kieslowski's black comedy is sprinkled with white -- white cars, white skies, white marble, white snow. There's less grace in Kieslowski's direction, but the images he creates are still breathtakingly pretty and subtle. (The "sign language" scene is evidence enough)

Zamachowski has an underrated turn as Karol Karol. He seems like a nice, sweet guy who takes one kick in the teeth after another, kind of like a lost puppy. In a word: Loser. In another word: Wimp. Then he shows his dark side -- one that, on the outside, nobody would think Karol had. And Delpy does a lovely job making Dominique into a malicious schemer, without making her two-dimensionally nasty.

This droll dark comedy is a bit flawed, but it shows Kieslowski's unmistakable style and wit, and the acting is nearly impeccable. Call it a portrait in "White."

"Home at last!"
Krzysztof Kieslowski's second entry in his "Three Colors" trilogy is filled with less dread than its predecessor "Blue," but that is not to say that "White" is a totally whimsical film. "White" is actually a revenge-tale that has an underlying mean streak in addition to its more comical elements. It is a film that revels in the idea that a man scorned can be just as dangerous as a woman scorned.

"White" traces the journey of Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski), a hairdresser from Poland. Karol is a simple man who has become despondent over his upcoming divorce in France. Unable to reconcile with his former wife, Dominique (Julie Delpy), Karol returns home curled up in a suitcase and sets into motion a series of events that culminates with him becoming a successful businessman. He uses his newfound wealth and power to reignite Dominique's interest in him, but when she arrives in Poland, Karol exacts his revenge when she unwittingly falls into his trap.

Zamachowski's performance in "White" is a treasure. His Karol is a lovable character whose darkness comes as a bit of a shock when it emerges because of the disarming effect of his more charming side. Yet, this does not mean Karol is sinister. Calling him complicated would be more accurate as the film makes clear that he has mixed feelings over his actions. While he wants to get even with Dominique, he is still deeply in love with her as she continuously fills his thoughts long after they are separated. Such a complicated characterization is a welcome sight amongst the one-dimensional stock figures that inhabit many current films. "White" doesn't have the dramatic impact of "Blue" but is still a worthy continuation of the "Three Colors" trilogy. If anything, it will make you realize that not all people that project a jovial exterior are truly completely jovial inside. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The final section of the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colors trilogy (preceded by Blue and White) is the least likely of the three to stand alone, and indeed benefits from a little familiarity with the first two parts. Nevertheless, it's a strong, unique piece that reflects upon the ubiquity of images in the modern world and the parallel subjugation of meaningful communication. Irene Jacob plays a fashion model whose lovely face is hugely enlarged on a red banner no one in Paris can possibly miss seeing. Striking up a relationship with an embittered former judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who secretly scans his neighbors' conversations through electronic surveillance, Jacob's character becomes an aural witness to the secret lives of those we think we know. Kieslowski cleverly wraps up the trilogy with a device that brings together the principals of all three films. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (37)

A fitting nihilistic end
A very dissapointing finale to the trilogy, Rouge stars another beautiful woman (Irene Jacob), this time as a model named Valentine. Thru the circumstance of hitting a dog and trying to find its owner, she comes to meet a retired judge who keeps track of his neighbours' phone calls with surveillance equipment.

My dissapointment with Red is that it has a potentially ground-breaking movie in this idea. In a pivotal scene, the judge responds to Valentine's confrontation over the surveillance by pointing out to her that helping the people she hears on his equipment may not be as simple as she thinks, and that sometimes one would do better to listen.

The movie could have taken this and make Valentine realize it more fully. Instead, it vindicates Valentine in her unformed and irrational disgust, tells us that judgment and even reality are arrogant illusions, and in its conclusion paints the judge as a traumatized, fragile soul in need of repentance. A fitting nihilistic end for a director who wanted to get to work destroying human values. While he does so intelligently, adroitly and subtly in Blue and White, here his enterprise fails.

You can actually feel your heart lifting as you watch it.
'Red' is the most magical of the 'Three Colours' trilogy, one in which metamorphosis or spiritual transformation is central. 'Blue' and 'White' could never be confused with social realism, but both were true to the inner, poetic reality of their protagonists. This isn't the case with 'Red' - none of its four main characters can be said to dominate the film: although there is definitely a controlling consciousness, it's not clear whose it is. As always with Kieslowski, the film's first sequence sets out its strategies in miniature. On an unexceptial Genevan (NOT Parisian!) street, the camera picks out one character and his dog, abandons them to peer into the bedroom of its heroine, Valentine, a student and model with a jealous boyfriend we hear but never see, who is working in England. Despite the technical virtuosity of this one-shot sequence, this opening could be considered realistic: we are introduced to characters and their environment. But there are two details that work against this. The heroine lives above a cafe called Chez Joseph, which also happens to be the name of the film's anti-hero, the misanthropic ex-judge Kern, who eavesdrops on his neighbour's telephone conversations by radio. This is only the first of the film's many patterned coincidences which take us out of psychological realism into a different kind of storytelling (the cafe sign is in red which will similarly, anti-realistically, be splashed throughout the film).

The second detail is that the heroine is not introduced by her self, in person, but by her voice on the answering machine. Immediately we have a split within selves, between the present and the absent, that proliferates in this film of doubles, shadows and correspondances. Not only do characters mirror others, but individual characters see their identities diffused through different media (telephones, photographs, newspapers, TV, radio etc.), means of mechanical reproduction which assume a fetishstic or spiritual power. Despite its apparent realism, then, 'Red' is a work of magic or fantasy. When Valentine first enters Kern's dark, dank bungalow (a modern Plato's cave), having run over his dog, the camera takes on the sinister point-of-view familiar from slasher films, while the bleeping radio sounds announcing the judge seem like the laboratory appurtenances of a mad professor. In the second, more important meeting, the fact that Valentine is crossing thresholds into a magic realm is doubly signalled. The gate and dooorway is guarded by the mythical dog who brought the pair toghter, by way of a church. Before she enters, a wind suddenly shivers the leaves of a framing tree; later, at the moment we are supposed to hate him for his moral nihilism, Kern summons a blinding epiphany of sunlight. He may be a monster, but in his 'eavesdropping' on others, his making connections between disparate, disorganised lives and his creating consoling fictions in the face of tragedy, Kern is a substitute for both director and viewer. In the figure of the young judge, who seems to exactly replay the older man's life (both of whom are never seen in the same scene), we have that haunting Proustian conflation of past, present and future, the outer world and inner life, that Kieslowski strove for, but didn't quite catch, in 'Blue'.

'Red' is the most sympathetic of all the films in the 'Three Colours' trilogy. Perhaps this is because red is a warmer colour than blue or white. Or because Preisner's score is lusher, almost celebratory, close to Maurice Jarre. Maybe it's because Irene Jacob is a much more open, generous actress than her predecessors - like her name and colour, Valentine seems to irradiate love. Sometimes her innocence is too ideal to be true, and we find ourselves much more drawn to the fascinatingly ambiguous, charismatic, persuasive figure of the judge. Their stagy dialogues could have had the banal quality of Shavian dialectic if it wasn't for the metatextual patterns that cast shadows around the coherence of their words, shadows that make the film at once soul-soaring and unforgivingly bleak - is salvation of the few really worth the deaths of thousands?

A portrait in scarlet
Despite being the finale of the critically acclaimed "Colors" trilogy, "Red" ("Rouge") need not be seen after the similarly beloved "Blue" ("Bleu") and "White" ("Blanc"). As warm and rich as the shades of red scattered through it, this film is one of the most compelling non-American releases in years.

On her way home from a modelling session, Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidently runs over and injures a pregnant dog. The owner is Joseph Kern, (Jean-Louis Trintignant) an embittered, cynical ex-judge whose years of condemnation and acquittal have left him spiritually adrift. He now spends his time alone in his house, wiretapping the phones of his neighbors and predicting what will happen in their lives.

After Valentine expresses disgust at Joseph's activities, he turns himself in to the authorities. Their friendship grows into a bond of differing values and unhappy histories. As Valentine prepares to leave for England, the judge reveals the tragic circumstances of his early life -- a tragedy mirrored by some of the people he has been spying on.

Where "Blue" was cool and sensual and "White" was sharp and sexy, "Red" has a sweetness and richness to its story. Valentine's name suggests love, and that love -- a platonic friendship that teeters on romantic love -- brings Joseph back from his unhealthy cynicism. Her kindness and unhappiness appeal to him, reassuring him that people are not intrinsically bad. His spiritual transformation is subtle, but convincing; it's mirrored by the sun shining down on him near the film's end.

Few filmmakers could pull off the symbolism that springs up in any of the "Colors" movies. In this one, red springs up everywhere -- walls, glasses, jeeps, lipstick, clothing, phones, bowling balls, little lights lining a model runway. The most obvious example is the enormous red picture of Valentine that's put up over the city.

The writing is simple but profound, with immense weight on simple statements like "Why don't you do anything?" or "You deserve to die!" Perhaps the only questionable part of the movie is the way it draws together characters from "White" and "Blue." It's either strained or genius -- hard to tell which.

Jacob does an excellent job with the difficult character of Valentine. She's almost too nice and innocent to be real, the incarnation of all that is good, but Jacob makes her come to life; without a word, she can convey a wealth of emotion with her face. Trintignant has a harder job: he has to bring across the weary, existentialist judge without making him unsympathetic. And he does so astoundingly.

In the French flag, red stands for fraternity. Not necessarily in the sense of brothers or college pals, but rather a love for one's fellow man. And that sense of fraternity is what drives "Red."

"I feel something important is happening around me."
"Red," the final entry in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy, raises the stakes in terms of storytelling by adding a metaphysical twist to the proceedings. So profound is this twist that it immediately makes you regard the previous two entries in a different light as it turns out there is tighter connection to the three films than previously thought. On its own, "Red" is an enjoyable viewing experience, but when regarded as part of a larger tapestry, it becomes a genuinely intriguing work of creative art.

A fashion model named Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidentally hits a dog while driving one night. She takes it to its owner, a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who has a bad habit of eavesdropping on the conversations of others. Even though Valentine and the judge come from different worlds, the two of them start to develop a bond between them. One day the judge tells Valentine of a relationship he was in earlier in his life that ended on a painful note. In a strange twist of fate, the lives of two young lovers named Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) and Karin (Frederique Feder) start to unfold in an eerily-similar fashion to that of the judge and his lover thirty years ago. Valentine herself then becomes part of destiny's game when she boards a passenger barge.

There's a fascinating connection between the three "Three Colors" films in the character of an elderly lady who struggles to put an empty bottle into a recycling bin. While the character appears to be nothing significant in "Blue" (1993) and "White" (1994), Valentine's interaction with her in "Red" redefines the events of the earlier films. In this respect, it is very important to watch the three films in the proper sequence in order to appreciate just how much of a role fate plays in the lives of the trilogy characters. In the acting department, "Red" is blessed with outstanding performances with Jacob being especially radiant in her part. Even though the character she plays is essentially a passive participant in destiny's web, Valentine never loses her place as the emotional and dramatic core of the film thanks to the talented Jacob. She ably brings Kieslowski's trilogy to a thought-provoking and unique conclusion.

History repeats it's self..only this time ..She exists.
one of my all-time best movies ..a film that's worthy to watch over and over for it's richness in story , direction , acting and a wonderfull Sound track by Zbigniew Preisner that would certainly impact You..About the movie ,that paranormal atmosphere within the relationships of the characters in that movie gives it such an enigmatic feel with a surprising end ...for you'll figure out some how that it's a story about fate and history that almost repeats it's self..( a complex linking ) but this time..that gentle pretty young woman exists to change that history repeating it's self with her fate.................. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Exactly what I was expecting, he didn't let me down.
This video is a winner. At his best. I also saw the one at Oxford Univ. and that was plain so-so. But the Broadway one is fantastic, I got it for my Mother's Birthday, so she can laugh even when she is sick. She memorizes them now and tells them to me. We are in kahootz now telling Jackie Mason jokes. Also, I think this material is better than his "brand new" cd. ... Read more

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QUIXOTIC OBSESSIONS
For the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, celebrated director of RED, WHITE, and BLUE, life is an undivine comedy--and film-making a far stranger farce. No doubt that the absurdities that this Pole faced througout his life afforded him a peculiar brand and blend of pessimism, humanism, and humour which informs his works.In CAMERA BUFF, originally entitled AMATOR in Polish with the implication on the word amateur, the film-maker is Filip, a factory worker. He acquiresan 8 mm camera with the intention of filming his daughter's development. This biographic projects soon develops into other things, such as bearing witness to the society around him. It comes to a point where the authorities cautions him in his filmic projects. Filip's double life takes over and he is slowly becomes isolated from his family and friends. In the end Filip finally faces up to his obsessions. What began as a humourous movie about obsessive cinephilia turns and, later, totalitarian film-making, doubles back into a study of human vulnerablity. Filip's final gesture is revisited by Kieslowski, the man behind the camera, in a scene towards the end of of his last movie RED. The autobiographical is not far away from Kieslowski's meditation on politics and art. Kieslowski started out as a documentarist. Once, it turns out that he may have recorded a murderer stuffing her victim's dead body in a train locker. When the authorities seized the cameras for his documentary, it turns out that the event was not filmed. In addition, Kieslowski offers fragments of a documentary in CAMERA BUFF. This documentary within the movie was once a potential project but was turned down by the censors. Kieslowski not only relates to his characters, the 'not fulfilled' as one commentator puts it, but may be populated by his echoes, shades or twins. Actual incidents and personages intrude upon the fictional world. Stories get repeated with slight variations. Lives are lived simultaneously in different parts of the world. Some are born too soon or too late, depending upons one's point of view, but all are after the same things in life.Kieslowski is a moralist film-maker andhe eschews a heavy-handed moralism for a compassionate world view. No one is entirely evil and we must understand them, he would suggest. And so his characters may seem lost and clueless, but in the end Kieslowski offers them a sense of ambigious redemption and release. Their lives and ours are part of a human comedy afterall. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A great movie, a great director
I was happy to find another great movie to buy. I bought this one taking the chance, because I never have heard anything of it. But once again Kieslowski take over deep fellings and a complex speech, opening a door of sensations. Great movie. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Where the first two episodes of Krzysztof Kieslowski's intimate epic The Decalogue explore issues of faith with powerful stories of profound conflict, the third and fourth make a more elusive, ethereal pair. "Decalogue III" ("Honor the Sabbath Day") is a kind of road trip to the heart as a woman tracks down her former lover, now a married family man with a child, and pleads with him to help her find her missing husband on Christmas Eve. In "Decalogue Four" ("Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother"), the tender emotional balance between a widowed father and his grown daughter is upended when she opens a letter from her deceased mother and learns a secret that she has always suspected. Curiously, both hinge on lies that upset established relationships, and confessions that bring things back to a new course, stable but forever changed. These intimate stories are tender, conversation-laden cameos, lovely little miniatures nestled among the more ambitious episodes of the series. Though modest in scope, Kieslowski invests each of these stories with rich emotional life as he explores the loneliness of a single woman during the holidays, a loving father's fear of abandonment, and the confused feelings of a young adult. Each resolution is buoyed up by Kieslowski'ssympathetic, warm understanding. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Amazon.com

In "Decalogue VII" ("Thou Shalt Not Steal"), Krzysztof Kieslowski turnsthe commandment into the devastating story of the theft of a mother's love and the emotional wounds left in its wake. Majka, a willowy young woman devastated by sadness, kidnaps her young sister Ania to set things straight in her charade of a life. The girl is in fact her daughter, raised by Majka's mother Ewa to avoid scandal, but Ewa has jealously hoarded the affection of the little one, walling the real mother off from her daughter's love. Kieslowski has never shied from painting the brutish colors ofhuman nature, but echoing beneath the hurt and anger and selfishness of the blindly selfish Ewa and vindictive Majka is a desperate cry for love and affection. Another contentious relationship is explored in "Decalogue VIII" ("Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor"), the story of a Holocaust survivor who confronts the woman (now a renowned professor of ethics) who refused her shelter when she was a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis in 1943 Poland. The potentially explosive issue is dealt with in direct terms, but it's the undercurrent of faith questioned and regained that gives the episode its resonant beauty. This story most directly touches on other episodes of the series: an ethical problem posed in the professor's class is taken from "Decalogue II," and a neighboring stamp collector is the absent father buried at the opening of"Decalogue X." --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Amazon.com

In 1988 and 1989, Krzysztof Kieslowski embarked on an ambitious project, a 10-part series made for Polish TV and inspired by the Ten Commandments. It has since been acclaimed as one of the most important film events of the 1980s. "Decalogue I" ("I Am the Lord Thy God; Thou Shalt Not Have Other Gods Before Me") explores the awakening of a young prodigy's spiritual curiosity. Kieslowski paints a loving, nurturing family portrait in the episode, only to shatter the peace with tragedy. In "Decalogue II" ("Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain"), a married woman pregnant by her lover is tortured by a life-shattering decision. Her husband lays dying in the hospital, and she will abort the child to protect her marriage if he lives. His doctor realizes his prognosis will decide the life or death of an unborn child. These are among the most moving of Kieslowski's tales, and they form a beautiful complementary pair, addressing issues of faith and spirituality more directly than any of the following episodes. Haunting images (wax drips onto a portrait of the Madonna like tears running down her cheek in "Decalogue I") express the emotions locked under the hard faces of scarred characters, until the feelings well up in profound conclusions that resonate with the passion and loss inherent in the magic of everyday life. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Description

A film which on the surface looks like a story of a conflict resulting from a generation gap, a quarrel between the artists and the theatre technical staff, is transformed into a discourse about the essentials, expressing concern about things going far beyond the problems of artistic work in the theatre. It is a film about the professional morality as well as socio-political discussion. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The film is great, this video Version definitely is not
I was much looking forward to viewing this early film of Kieslowski. And I was very much enjoying the screening, till suddenly the video version ended ... 15 to 20 minutes before the conclusion of the actual film.
In the video taping, somehow, and unfortunately, the final part of the film was cut off. Incomprehensible.
Then to confirm my suspicion/conclusion, I screened the film again with a Polish colleague, and he pointed out that the English subtitles are very weak, that they do not conform very precisely with the dialogue, and that, in fact, much of the time, they are seriously out of synch with the spoken dialogue.
All very unfortunate. Kieslowski and his fans deserve better. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The two most famous episodes of Kieslowski's 10-part series, "Decalogue V" ("Thou Shalt Not Kill") and "Decalogue VI" ("Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery"), were expanded to feature length for release as A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love, but these original hour-long versions stand on their own as the most potent episodes of the series. In "Decalogue V," the faith of a younglawyer is shaken when he defends a man accused of the violent murder of a taxi driver. Like Tim Robbins's Dead Man Walking, it's a provocative attempt to reconcile the gap between murder and state-sanctioned execution, and Kieslowski pulls no punches on either side: the murder scene is excruciating in its relentless intensity. But as he looks through the eyes of the troubled attorney who suffers a crisis in faith, the film turns inward and becomes contemplative and personal. "Decalogue VI" is a touching and troubling story of a young, emotionally unstable postal worker who becomes obsessed with a promiscuous older woman. He steals her mail and peeps through her apartment window with a telescope, but when she returns the gaze the one-way relationship becomes much more complicated. Kieslowski gets under the skin of both characters as the older woman confronts the boy andshames him with loveless sex--and they come out the other end of the tale as humbled humans who take a harder look at themselves and a sympathetic second look each other. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (1)

eerie, powerful and moving
The late Polish film-maker Krzysztof Kieslowski, who began his career as a documentarian, has, with the Decalogue, produced what is surely one of the defining moments in late twentieth century cinema. Kieslowski's project, out of whose fifth episode this film grew, was nothing less than a wholescale re-interpretation of the Ten Commandments, applied to modern life.

In A Short Film About Killing, Kieslowski shows us a murder and its aftermath. Jacek, a young man, dreams of escaping the Warovian housing projects and dreary, late-Communist life to visit the mountains with his girlfriend. At the same time, a young lawyer graduates from law school, is called ot the Polish bar, nad has his first child. In what is surely one of the most horrific killings on screen, Jacek brutally strangles and beats a cab driver to death. Kieslowski's film goes on to examine the consequences of the murder on not only Jacek but his young lawyer.

Kieslowski's film achieves its brilliance in its delicate balance of condemnation with compassion. Even as we see the justice of Jacek's execution, the subtly riveting scenes where we hear of the major trauma of his childhood undermine any easy sense of moral certainty we have developed. The final execution is nearly impossible to watch, as Kieslowski has, by then, made his point-- that there is an ineffable beauty in life, and that, as Plato suggested in the Republic, justice is somethign that improves us, not which destroys.

Warsaw, ably filmed by the brilliant Slawomir Idziak (the cinematographer of GATTACA), is soaked in green and yellow colours, pestilential, and sometimes oddly beautiful. Kieslowski's pacing is superb. The film paints and whispers when it needs to, then it simply and quietly rips the viewer's heart out.

Ultimately, the film's suggestion is deceptively simple: killing, be it for individual gain, or by the State as sanctioned punishment, is murder. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A great movie, a great director
I was happy to find another great movie to buy. I bought this one taking the chance, because I never have heard anything of it. But once again Kieslowski take over deep fellings and a complex speech, opening a door of sensations. Great movie. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

QUIXOTIC OBSESSIONS
For the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, celebrated director of RED, WHITE, and BLUE, life is an undivine comedy--and film-making a far stranger farce. No doubt that the absurdities that this Pole faced througout his life afforded him a peculiar brand and blend of pessimism, humanism, and humour which informs his works.In CAMERA BUFF, originally entitled AMATOR in Polish with the implication on the word amateur, the film-maker is Filip, a factory worker. He acquiresan 8 mm camera with the intention of filming his daughter's development. This biographic projects soon develops into other things, such as bearing witness to the society around him. It comes to a point where the authorities cautions him in his filmic projects. Filip's double life takes over and he is slowly becomes isolated from his family and friends. In the end Filip finally faces up to his obsessions. What began as a humourous movie about obsessive cinephilia turns and, later, totalitarian film-making, doubles back into a study of human vulnerablity. Filip's final gesture is revisited by Kieslowski, the man behind the camera, in a scene towards the end of of his last movie RED. The autobiographical is not far away from Kieslowski's meditation on politics and art. Kieslowski started out as a documentarist. Once, it turns out that he may have recorded a murderer stuffing her victim's dead body in a train locker. When the authorities seized the cameras for his documentary, it turns out that the event was not filmed. In addition, Kieslowski offers fragments of a documentary in CAMERA BUFF. This documentary within the movie was once a potential project but was turned down by the censors. Kieslowski not only relates to his characters, the 'not fulfilled' as one commentator puts it, but may be populated by his echoes, shades or twins. Actual incidents and personages intrude upon the fictional world. Stories get repeated with slight variations. Lives are lived simultaneously in different parts of the world. Some are born too soon or too late, depending upons one's point of view, but all are after the same things in life.Kieslowski is a moralist film-maker andhe eschews a heavy-handed moralism for a compassionate world view. No one is entirely evil and we must understand them, he would suggest. And so his characters may seem lost and clueless, but in the end Kieslowski offers them a sense of ambigious redemption and release. Their lives and ours are part of a human comedy afterall. ... Read more