Three Colors: White

I suppose you could consider this a kind of supplement to my ongoing series of articles exploring the Sight an Sound Top 250, since both Blue and Red, the first and third films in director Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors Trilogy are listed among those films, but the middle piece, White, is not.

So why not? Well, it’s an interesting question, and not one easily answered.

The first time I watched White, I definitely thought of it as the lesser of the three films. Of course, my initial approach to the films was not viewing them in order. I first saw Red while on a trip to visit an old friend in Chicago. It wasn’t until quite a while later that I tracked down the other two films. So White was actually the last of the three that I saw, and honestly I found it something of a let down.

A big part of that was thee fact that even though all three films are designed to stand by themselves, though they are tangentially interconnected, White seems much more of a singular outing.

Also, while the other two films have quite a bit of heft to them, especially the heavy-hearted Blue, White is, at least on its surface, much lighter, not quite a comedy, but with definite touches of humor.

The story opens with the divorce proceedings of Karol Karol and his estranged wife Dominique. Karol is a stranger in a strange land, Polish living in Paris, and having married a French wife. Struggling through the hearing with his limited understanding of French, he is embarrassed when Dominique tells the court that although she at least once loved him, she doesn’t anymore, mostly due to his inability to consummate their marriage.

After the divorce is granted, Dominique leaves Karol outside the courthouse with only a single oversized trunk which she tells him contains all of his belongings. To make matters even worse, Karol soon finds that his bank account has been frozen. He elects to take refuge for the night in a salon that he ran with his wife (he is trained as a hairdresser) but when she finds him there in the morning, Dominique first threatens to call the cops, then, after Karol once again fails her sexually, she sets fire to the drapes and tells him she will tell the police that he broke in and set fire to the place in an attempt at revenge for her leaving him.

Finally, completely destitute, Karol takes to busking in a subway station, spending his nights sleeping in an alcove and his days playing tunes on his comb hoping for change from the passing businessmen and tourists. It is here that he meets Mikolaj, a fellow Pole who recognizes the tune he is playing. The two men begin talking, and Mikolaj offers to take Karol back to Poland with him where he will have a chance for a new start.

The offer does not come without strings, however. Since Karol has no funds with which to pay for the trip. he has to repay Mikolaj back by performing a service for him. He tells Karol that he knows someone who wishes to die, and Karol will have to be the one to kill him.

Of course, even if Karol agrees to perform the murder, there is still the problem of getting him back to Poland. Not only does he have no funds, he is also without his passport. Finally, after a last desperate call to Dominique during which she teases him by making love to another man while he is on the phone, the two concoct a plan. Mikolaj will buy a ticket to Warsaw, and Karol will stowaway in his trunk which Mikolaj will reclaim at the end of the trip.

All does not go according to plan, though, as the trunk is stolen -along with a few other pieces of luggage – is stolen by an unscrupulous baggage handler. The thief and his friends take the bags to the wilderness in order to open them and make money off whatever they may contain. Imagine their surprise upon learning that the large trunk they have stolen actually contains a person!

Beaten by the thugs an left alone in the wilderness, Karol eventually makes his way back to his home town where he is joyously reunited with his brother and begins to set up shop in his brother’s salon. He is, however, still discontent, realizing that he will never really get ahead the way he wants to earning only the money he makes as a hairdresser. So, he goes to a local money exchange office (which is obviously a front for some rather shady deals) and gets a job as a lookout and bodyguard. It’s in this role that he soon learns that his bosses intend to quietly buy up a large amount of property that they know is soon to be highly desirable to some rich developers.

Karol then sets about undercutting them by buying up small parcels of land which they will need in order to have a complete tract to sell to the developers. Having his (now former) employers over a barrel, Karol agrees to sell the property to them for ten times what he paid.

Also during this time, Karol has reconnected with Mikolaj who tells him that the offer he made to him in France still stands: If he will kill a man who desires to die, he will be paid an enormous sum of money. It really comes as no surprise that the man is Mikolaj himself. He has lost his passion for life, but is unwilling to kill himself because of the desolation it would cause to his family.

Meeting on an abandoned subway platform, Karol pulls out a gun, explaining off-handedly that these days pretty much anything can be bought. He repeatedly asks Mikolaj if he is sure he wants to go through with it until his friend forcibly brings Karol’s gun-holding hand to his chest, and Karol pulls the trigger.

Mikolaj collapses, then realizes that he is still alive. Karol tells him that the first bullet was a blank, but the next one is real, an again asks the older man if he truly wants to go through with his death. It seems, though, that this brush with his own demise was enough to change his mind and he now wants to live. Still he goes ahead and pays Karol the money he promised him, telling him that he has earned it.

So, with the money he gets from Mikoaj, and that he has scammed from his former boss, Karol sets up his own company, bringing Mikolaj on as a partner, and the company quickly takes off, making Karol quickly wealthy. However, no matter how much his lifestyle grows and how wonderful his life seems, there is still one thing he doesn’t have: Dominique. An she is something that he still desperately wants.

And as we all know, when a man is desperate for something, he often resorts to desperate measures.

The film is truly a masterpiece, and is filled with incredible performances. Julie Delpy is stunning as Dominique an its easy to see why a man like Karol (or any man, for that matter) would be obsessed with her. At the same time she is truly convincing in her portrayal of a woman whose disappointment with her situation and her partner turns to anger and evil.

Zbigniew Zamachowski plays Karol Karol, and he has just the right face to portray this desperate man who is seemingly put upon by the entire world. At the same time he manages almost always to maintain a hopefulness in the future that at times seems almost out of place considering his circumstances.

Also of note in the film is Jerzy Stuhr who plays Karol’s brother Jurek. Sturh is an actor who worked quite a bit with Kieślowski and it’s easy to see why the director would want to use him as often as possible.

So, while White may not be as dark or as fraught as the other two movies in the Three Colors trilogy, it is in no way a lesser movie. In many ways, as a matter of fact, it is much more accessible than Blue, which asks much more of its audience.

Highly recommended.

Top 250 Tuesdays: #137 – Three Colors: Blue (1993)

No, I’m not going to repeat this intro every time, but since this is a newish feature, and I’ve had a few new readers come on board recently, it seems appropriate to re-run it at least one more time, so here’s just a small bit of introduction before we get things underway. Top 250 Tuesdays is my attempt to wend my way through the Sight and Sound Top 250 Greatest Films list. Basically, for me it’s a way of exploring what are considered some of the all-time great movies, in an attempt both to broaden the scope of my viewing and to fill in a number of gaps in the movies that I probably should have already seen, or even revisiting some old favorites in a new light A couple of notes, however, before we get started. As you’ll note at the top, this says #005. that’s actually noting that this movie is number five on the list, not that this is the fifth entry into the series. I decided to do it this way because I don’t intend to just go up (or down) through the list. Instead, I’ll be jumping around, sometimes just picking a number at random and watching that one, sometimes picking a movie based on other considerations. Also, I’m not planning for these write-ups to be reviews per se, though of course, in writing about them, I’m sure you’ll be able to get a feel for how much I liked or disliked a particular movie, nor do I intend to feed you a lot of Wikipedia or IMDB style information about the movies – obviously, you can find that type of information in any number of places. Of course, there will be times when background and context is important for getting a feel for some of these films, especially the older or less familiar ones, but generally I intend to keep that kind of thing to a minimum and just stick to my reactions or thoughts on the movie. After all, hopefully that’s what you’ve come here to read. For a longer introduction and a look at the entire list of films in the top 250, you can find that here. Okay, with all of that out of the way, let’s get on with it.

Blue was actually the second of director Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s Three Colors trilogy that I watched. I actually began with the end, when, upon a visit with a friend in Chicago that happened to coincide with it’s release, she insisted that we go see Red, the actual last film in the series. Fortunately, since the films form more of a thematic trilogy than one in which the actual plot spans the three films, that one was able to stand on its own, and it very much did. Not only did it stand up well, but it stood out in a way that definitely made me want to go back and explore not only the other films of the series, but as much of the director’s other work as I could. To say that I was enraptured and captivated by what I saw on the screen that day would not be too much of an overstatement.

Kieslowski’s trilogy is built around two basic ideas. The first, of course, is that of the titles, Blue, White, and Red, those being the colors of the french flag. (Yes, for my American readers, they are also, in reverse order, the colors of the U.S. flag, but that, in this case is sheer coincidence.) The other idea is the thematic link between the three films, this time built around the three ideals of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood (or, as it is more closely and usually translated, Fraternity).

Blue, as it comes first, obviously is intended to take on the theme of liberty, but liberty from what? Clearly, this is a very personal, rather than political film, so rather than being about liberty from outside forces, the movie is centered on freedom from internal forces. Freedom from the past. Freedom from pain. Freedom from memories. Perhaps even freedom from life itself.

Blue is a film that is full of beauty…

The movie stars Juliette Binoche, who is at her most dazzlingly beautiful under the eye of Kieslowski and cinematographer Sławomir Idziak’s  camera. Binoche plays the role of Juliet, the wife of famed composer Patrice de Courcy. When her husband and young daughter are killed in a car accident on the way back from a family outing, she is left as the only survivor. Thus, she is suffering through most of the film not only from the loss of her family, but from survivor’s guilt.

None of the above, by the way, should be considered spoilers, since the wreck occurs within the opening minutes of the film.

Last week, I wrote about F.W. Murnau’s silent film Sunrise which was subtitled A Song of Two Humans. If that film was a song, then Blue is a symphony. Not only is there the literal symphony, or rather concerto, which gives the plot its driving force, and snatches of which are heard throughout the film, but the film itself is a symphony of images, of thoughts, of colors, and yes, of music. It has crescendos of both beauty and pain, and it has quieter moments of reverie and, eventually, acceptance. It is, in a word, glorious.

…but it is also one full of pain and grief.

Blue is one of those movies that is very hard to describe to someone who is unfamiliar with it, or with the director’s other works, because it truly is a film that needs to be seen. I don’t mean that it would be hard to describe the plot, because that can be done in a few sentences. Or, on the other hand I could write pages and pages about it, and still not have exhausted what could be said. No, what I really mean is that this is one of those instances where the whole really is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is a film where the story, the visuals, the music, all of which could form the basis of a really good movie, come together in a way that raises this one from the level of good to great.

And, I suppose that’s why it’s on this list, and presumably (hopefully) there will be many more like it to come.

Anyway, to put it very simply, with Blue, Kieslowski has truly composed a masterpiece.

Related articles

• Critics Top 250 Challenge Special: #250 & #137 Three Colours Trilogy. (peepingben.wordpress.com)
• Feeling Blue (spfilmjournal.wordpress.com)
• Blue (Trois Couleurs: Bleu) (myoldaddiction2.wordpress.com)