Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Writers: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Agnieszka Holland, Edward Zebrowski, Edward Klosinski, Marcin Latallo
Photography: Piotr Sobocinski
Music: Zbigniew Preisner
Editor: Jacques Witta
Cast: Irene Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Lorit, Frederique Feder
Based on the French flag colors of the “blue, white, and red,” Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy wraps up with Red and a story of fraternity (as opposed to the liberty themes of Blue and equality themes of White). Although Red was the first of the trilogy I saw when it was new, and my favorite, it feels now more like a winding-down, even pale feel-good exercise, with some air of mystery, a kinda sorta heartening redemption story, and ham-handed cameos from the first two movies. Human bonds are forged, here as in life, via family ties, sometimes. But more often by random chance. Who can account for why we have made the friends we have?
In a way Red has Kieslowski’s biggest star yet in Jean-Louis Trintignant, who died just last year. He’s an art film hero and veteran whose roles date back to 1955 and include My Night at Maud’s, The Conformist, and, much later, Amour (not to mention the spaghetti western The Great Silence). In Red he plays a retired judge who spies on people and feels embittered and alone. Irene Jacob previously appeared in Kieslowski’s 1992 movie The Double Life of Veronique and once again, as Valentine here, is a kindly, wide-eyed soul of goodness. In a moment of distracted driving she runs over the judge’s German Shepherd dog Rita, who is pregnant. No dogs are harmed in the making of this film but they do have their trials in the narrative. Rita, who has the face of a saint, is injured only with scrapes and bruises. She recovers, but the judge doesn’t care.
Based on the French flag colors of the “blue, white, and red,” Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy wraps up with Red and a story of fraternity (as opposed to the liberty themes of Blue and equality themes of White). Although Red was the first of the trilogy I saw when it was new, and my favorite, it feels now more like a winding-down, even pale feel-good exercise, with some air of mystery, a kinda sorta heartening redemption story, and ham-handed cameos from the first two movies. Human bonds are forged, here as in life, via family ties, sometimes. But more often by random chance. Who can account for why we have made the friends we have?
In a way Red has Kieslowski’s biggest star yet in Jean-Louis Trintignant, who died just last year. He’s an art film hero and veteran whose roles date back to 1955 and include My Night at Maud’s, The Conformist, and, much later, Amour (not to mention the spaghetti western The Great Silence). In Red he plays a retired judge who spies on people and feels embittered and alone. Irene Jacob previously appeared in Kieslowski’s 1992 movie The Double Life of Veronique and once again, as Valentine here, is a kindly, wide-eyed soul of goodness. In a moment of distracted driving she runs over the judge’s German Shepherd dog Rita, who is pregnant. No dogs are harmed in the making of this film but they do have their trials in the narrative. Rita, who has the face of a saint, is injured only with scrapes and bruises. She recovers, but the judge doesn’t care.
As Valentine first meets and speaks with him, he has his electronic gear going and an ongoing telephone conversation between two surreptitious lovers plays. As with any picture working this territory—1974’s The Conversation, for example, or 2006’s The Lives of Others—there is a certain audiovisual fascination about the intricacies of this spying and further fascination in what the people spied on are saying or doing. Valentine castigates the judge for his invasions of privacy and indifference to Rita, but he appears little moved by it. He tells her she can keep the dog.
The picture is set in Geneva, where Valentine is a student and also works as a model. Her rebuke of the judge reaches him somehow and, in a somewhat unlikely development, he turns himself in to face the legal consequences. His neighbors begin to pitch stones through his windows and break them as expressions of how they feel about his spying on them. But the judge is now on the road to redemption, unfazed by the attacks, taking Rita back from Valentine, and tending the litter of seven puppies Rita shortly bears.
One of the neighbors is a law student named Auguste, whose life seems to be unfolding as a kind of echo of the judge’s, though he likely is also dealing drugs, which the judge has never done. This thread in Red is a bit confusing at best. The main point seems to be that Valentine and the judge have made their connections, however unlikely they may be. It’s not a love thing, at least in terms of sexual attraction, but a fraternal thing.
I like to think of things working out the way they do for Valentine and the judge. They both have numerous problems in their lives but their friendship is a growing source of solace and even strength for both. Valentine seems to have a tenuous relationship with her boyfriend, who lives in London, but she follows through on plans to visit him there, choosing to take the ferry from France rather than fly, as she doesn’t like to fly. But the ferry turns out to be no safer. A storm capsizes it. Of the more than 1,400 passengers only seven survive. They are Julie and Olivier from Blue, Karol and Dominique from White, Auguste, Valentine, andthe professor and Mary Ann a barman we don’t otherwise know. The judge, watching the TV coverage from Geneva, is relieved to see Valentine has survived, which also shows he is becoming capable of love again.
Fraternal love, I hasten to say, to be clear about what Kieslowski seems to be up to here. I had a harder time with this finish than I did the first time I saw Red, when I didn’t know the principals from the other pictures. I’m not so sure about this ending, to the trilogy as well as the movie, but as it is not dwelt on long (it’s the ending after all) the pain of the awkwardness doesn’t last long. It can be taken simply as an artful, somewhat precious way of wrapping it up. I’m also not sure about the redemption arc with the judge—he swings pretty wild in the course of the movie, from obnoxiously embittered to almost obnoxiously kindly, but OK. Still, taken as a whole, Three Colors is nearly as monumental in its way as Dekalog. Arguably, after the extremes of Blue and White, it’s nice to see it end on an upbeat note.
The picture is set in Geneva, where Valentine is a student and also works as a model. Her rebuke of the judge reaches him somehow and, in a somewhat unlikely development, he turns himself in to face the legal consequences. His neighbors begin to pitch stones through his windows and break them as expressions of how they feel about his spying on them. But the judge is now on the road to redemption, unfazed by the attacks, taking Rita back from Valentine, and tending the litter of seven puppies Rita shortly bears.
One of the neighbors is a law student named Auguste, whose life seems to be unfolding as a kind of echo of the judge’s, though he likely is also dealing drugs, which the judge has never done. This thread in Red is a bit confusing at best. The main point seems to be that Valentine and the judge have made their connections, however unlikely they may be. It’s not a love thing, at least in terms of sexual attraction, but a fraternal thing.
I like to think of things working out the way they do for Valentine and the judge. They both have numerous problems in their lives but their friendship is a growing source of solace and even strength for both. Valentine seems to have a tenuous relationship with her boyfriend, who lives in London, but she follows through on plans to visit him there, choosing to take the ferry from France rather than fly, as she doesn’t like to fly. But the ferry turns out to be no safer. A storm capsizes it. Of the more than 1,400 passengers only seven survive. They are Julie and Olivier from Blue, Karol and Dominique from White, Auguste, Valentine, and
Fraternal love, I hasten to say, to be clear about what Kieslowski seems to be up to here. I had a harder time with this finish than I did the first time I saw Red, when I didn’t know the principals from the other pictures. I’m not so sure about this ending, to the trilogy as well as the movie, but as it is not dwelt on long (it’s the ending after all) the pain of the awkwardness doesn’t last long. It can be taken simply as an artful, somewhat precious way of wrapping it up. I’m also not sure about the redemption arc with the judge—he swings pretty wild in the course of the movie, from obnoxiously embittered to almost obnoxiously kindly, but OK. Still, taken as a whole, Three Colors is nearly as monumental in its way as Dekalog. Arguably, after the extremes of Blue and White, it’s nice to see it end on an upbeat note.
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