video review: Trois Couleurs

Published in The Post-Star (D5)
10/14/05

Trois Couleurs 1994. Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Blue, starring Juliette Binoche, 100 minutes. White, starring Julie Delpy, 91 minutes. Red, starring Irene Jacob, 99 minutes. Rated R. In French, with English subtitles.

It's been more than a decade since Krzysztof Kieslowski, a renowned Polish director who died in 1996, made the intriguing "Trois Couleurs" trilogy of films based on the colors of the French flag and their meanings -- liberty, equality and fraternity. Time hasn't lessened their beauty one bit.

Although there's some overlapping of characters between the films, it's not essential to view them in order. Each one tells its own compelling tale, looking at love in different slants of light and emotion.

"Blue" is the saddest of the three, with Juliette Binoche as a young widow who tries to escape grief by completely discarding her old life. Some surprising truths emerge as she wanders numbly through the weeks after her husband's and daughter's death, challenging viewers to consider all the consequences of personal freedom. The elegiac tone is emphasized by a haunting concerto that is composed throughout the film.

"White" tends to be the most popular, perhaps because it addresses such a common theme -- imbalanced romance -- with a combination of humor and heartbreak. It follows the quest of a Polish hairdresser obsessively in love with his ex-wife (Julie Delpy), even after she publicly humiliates him by revealing his impotence at their divorce hearing. The thickly layered plot merits more than one viewing.

Kieslowski ends the trilogy on a redemptive note with "Red," a story of loneliness transformed by an unlikely friendship between a student model named Valentine (Irene Jacob) and a misanthropic old man. Its quirky characters and sense of fragile hope reminded me of a more recent French film, "Amelie," which I also highly recommend.

Don't be turned off by the subtitles -- even if you couldn't read the words, you'd still enjoy the feast of images, colors, and music in these movies. Best of all, the DVDs are available for free at your local library. If you like them, you should also devote some time to Kieslowski's 10-part masterpiece, "Decalogue."

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