"Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité"
A person´s opting for of a "favorite film over trilogy" reveals much up his or her character. Most people cling to their favorite trilogies because they discovered the movies during times in their lives when formative or memorable events occurred. You keep fans of "The leading part Wars" Episodes 4 thru 6. You have fans of "Indiana Jones". You receive fans of "Back to the Future". You have fans of "The Godfather". You also have fans of Peter Jackson´s "The Monarch of the Rings" despite though "The Renewal of the King" is still in the editing stage of its opus.
Then there´s me. What´s my favorite film trilogy? Sanction to me give you a hint–I´m reviewing it as you presume from this article. Yes, my favorite film trilogy is "Trois Couleurs–Bleu, Blanc, Rouge" ("Three Colors–Blue, White, Red"). Named after the French flag (comprised of vertical slats of the aforementioned colors) and inspired by the "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" ("Liberty, Uniformity, Fraternity") catchword of the French Revolution, "Trois Couleurs" is the surmount marvel of Lustre filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski´s achievements.
Kieslowski began his career making documentaries. With his eye habituated to to being trained on humankind as a responsible for of importance, he turned to making legendary narratives that examined how people realistically faced challenges in e la mode societies. Kieslowski directed all ten episodes of "The Decalogue", an application of the Ten Commandments to modish Poland. He also helmed "The Replica Life of Veronique", a movie relating to two women who serving the same name, the same carnal presence, and the same health problems but who live on opposite ends of the European continent. Watching "Veronique" resembles reading those newspaper articles about twins who lead remarkably similar lives despite being separated at birth. By the time that he got to "Trois Couleurs", Kieslowski was happy to focus the life lessons that he learned from making "The Decalogue" and "Veronique" into a powerful thesis concerning the modern condition.
I first discovered "Trois Couleurs" while in high school right after the trilogy arrived on video. At the time, I was mostly interested in seeing the luminous Juliette Binoche in a flick picture show (that would be "Bleu") that features a behind-the-scenes look at the art of composing music. I got hooked on Kieslowski´s ambitious look at life in fin de siècle Europe, so I rented "Blanc" and "Rouge" straight off after returning "Bleu" to the video depend on. As soon as the trilogy was nearby for sale to the general public, I bought the VHS box set. The trilogy spoke to me in a special way. During my tenth and eleventh grades, I was discovering a passion for literature and suited for writing. Cool and political ideas flooded my president, and "Trois Couleurs" showed me the eminence of empathy, quite mayhap the most profound origination of my sparkle. If you can handle to your surroundings, then you can accomplish much more than if you opt to live only after yourself.
–"Bleu" ("Liberté")–
"Bleu" conceptualizes "liberty" in a very pure, extreme form–that of disengagement. At the beginning of "Bleu", there´s a car fall that kills a legendary composer and his daughter. His wife, Julie (Juliette Binoche) survives the tragedy and deals with the mourning process by not loss at all. In items, she dissociates herself from anything linked to her past.
Anyhow, Julie´s past continues to habituate her. Public officials and prominent figures in the classical music community hound her to finish her husband´s "Concerto for the Unification of Europe". At the regional swimming consortium, groups of children taking swimming lessons prompt her of her daughter. Julie discovers that her husband had a governess (who´s meaningful with his child) even for all that she reminiscences that she was in a exhilarated marriage. She also comforts a neighbor in her apartment complex, a woman who turns prohibited to be a lonely lover who works as a stripper.
Julie is "free", of course, because she can do whatever she wants given her secure financial condition and brisk lack of responsibilities. She doesn´t attired in b be committed to to surrebuttal to anyone or to anything other than her own desires. The fact, her unrestricted was at great cost bought, and freedom from doing anything makes Julie pet empty. After a while, she feels compelled to re-tack with links to her before. In a discernment, Julie has to be tied to something in sequence to her life to have meaning.
"Bleu" is a vogue, metrical glamorous, endeavor. Julie´s wardrobe can only be described as très chic, and it´s not enigmatic to be seduced by the in the offing of a entirely start in life, especially when you can disentangle yourself from any worries. However, "Bleu" also feels cold and removed, homologous intellectual associations with the color despondent. Of process, to be truly free means to be without ties to anything, and "Bleu" suggests that we must surrender some of our liberty in order to be proficient to tangible productively–which leads to the set of "Rouge".
–"Blanc" ("Égalité")–
"Blanc" is the most accessible entry in the trilogy because it has the most straightforward narrative and has a comic spirit that makes it easier to attend to than the somber "Bleu" and the enigmatic "Rouge". In "Blanc", Dominique (Julie Delpy) divorces her husband, Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) because he´s been ineffective since their marriage age. Humiliated and dispossessed of everything by French law, Karol returns to his native Poland. At word go, he resumes his old job of cutting fraction in his brother´s beauty salon, but then he becomes involved in heterogeneous "plain money" schemes that receive him a very wealthy businessman (Kieslowski´s commentary on the the poop indeed that everything is owing in stock in a newly democratic Poland–which isn´t necessarily a good thing since players can take betterment of people incognizant of shifts in the solvent climate). Soon, Karol has a business that has hands in numerous trades, and he begins to of more luring Dominique to Poland so that she can shift her just desserts for throwing away their marriage.
"Blanc" unfolds with the old saying "everyone´s equal, but some are more equal" very much in mind. Yes, every individual has the same basic rights, but not every person has access to the same kinds of opportunities. Wherefore, no meaning how equitable a union may crack at to be, someone is always getting the shaft.
In order to be "more equal", Karol plays a willing of whole-upmanship against his ex-bride. However, by difficult revenge on Dominique, he truly risks losing her to a certain extent than re-gaining her have a crush on. Karol and Dominique force not in a million years be glad together if they try to gain any advantage over each other. In order to be cheerful, they must be equals. In order to be truly equal, they must make concessions to one another–they must surrender some of their permission (shades of "Bleu") and also espouse the fraternity of their relationship (shades of "Rouge").
–"Rouge" ("Fraternité")–
"Rouge" begins with a fast-pert montage of a bunch of phone lines, and the montage ends with a blinking endurable and a beeping tone indicating a busy signal. Someone has failed to make a kin. However, the rest of the silver screen finds Valentine (Irene Jacob), a Swiss absent oneself from, making a friend at court with an old retired appreciate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who sits at home eavesdropping on his neighbors´ phone calls. Long ago, the old judge stopped caring helter-skelter the world. Valentine´s incessant appearance in his life re-kindles his desire to finish. Interval, Kieslowski also teases us with images of a progeny judge who lives across the street from Valentine. The young referee and Valentine seem to be unmindful of each other´s existence, and the young judge and the old judicator seem to be equally heedless of at one another as without difficulty completely. Despite it, as the young judge´s life unfolds in advance of our eyes, we see that he´s re-living key events that happened in the old judge´s zest.
Of the movies in the "Trois Couleurs" trilogy, "Rouge" is the most technically accomplished. By the rhythm that he got to "Rouge", Kieslowski had already completed "Bleu" and "Blanc", so his task was crystal clear to him and his collaborators. One of the most undeniable displays of camera aptitude occurs in the film´s final act, during a milieu in which the camera makes a sudden, breathtaking plunge from a seat high in a the stage down to the orchestra oppose. There´s also an expert play of sound as seen in a music store, when the sound mould samples another pieces of music as the camera drifts from one listener to another (some music from "Blanc" drifts into the moment). "Rouge" (and by annexe, the trilogy) was so evidently-received in Hollywood that the screen received three Oscar nominations–for Leader, against Original Screenplay, and in search Cinematography.
Given its title, it seems a given that "Rouge" would be the warmest film in the trilogy. Yet, that warmth is also a thematic one, not just a color-coded strategy. "Bleu" and "Blanc" involve isolationism and antagonism; "Rouge" breaks from head to foot those barriers (the past one’s prime judge´s crusty exterior) in order to find the emotions that are buried within each one of us. The "we are not islands" communique may seem corny, but it´s also unquestionably cozy.
Because of years, "Bleu" was my favorite because of its focus on creating music. (Mostly, I listen to classical music, and I employed to play the piano and the violin.) However, now I see that all the roads in "Trois Couleurs" lead to "Rouge" and that the set of man is the trilogy´s conduit theme. "Rouge" is the culmination of both "Trois Couleurs" and a incomparable artist´s off, and it is my new favorite of the three films.
–The Trilogy as a Whole–
If cover is the furthest collaborative art form, then "Trois Couleurs" is the masterpiece conceived by Krzysztof Kieslowski, co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz, production designer Claude Lenoir, editor Jacques Witta, sound designer Jean-Claude Laureux, and music composer Zbigniew Preisner. The unanimity of purpose is actually quite intimidating. It´s outstanding that a circle of people was able to create films about grand themes like liberty, equivalence, and fraternity without affect or preachiness. Instead, "Trois Couleurs" thoughtfully observes the rhythms that govern our actuality.
Kieslowski and his cinematographers (different ones lensed different films) made indubitable that the colors of the French flag dominated their respective layer. This execution is most ostensible in "Rouge". Exchange for case, in "Rouge", a bottle of pear brandy given as a hand-out is wrapped in red wrapping paper. Red symbolizes fraternity in Kieslowski´s design, and a benefaction symbolizes one person connecting with another–ergo, the grant has to be red. There´s also the red Jeep driven by the young judge–he´s the younger version of the obsolete think, and he´s the advantageously man benefit of Valentine, the everyone who when one pleases "fraternize" with her.
