Trios Coleurs – Blanc

‘I have decided to become a script writer’, my friend declared just as we were entering ‘Paradise Café’. We were making our customary trip to the Café for a dose of a ½ Chai. As I was trying to attract the attention of Iqbal (one of the 3 teenage waiters in the café) my friend began elaborating the reasons behind his decision. Apparently the slew of action flicks that released this summer had taken their toll on him. This coupled with the zany plot of the latest Crichton’s novel he had read on his flight to India had set him off in this endeavor. He was to say the least ‘inspired’. As I thought more, I felt that ‘inspiration’ was the most maligned word in the world of movie making.



Last weekend, I watched a movie titled ‘Trios Coleurs – Blanc (White)’, a French polish movie made by the celebrated filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. The movie (as mentioned in my previous post) is the second part of the trilogy of movies (‘Colors Trilogy’). The movie in a stark contrast to its predecessor in that ‘Blanc’ is a dark comedy while ‘Bleu’ is a movie about grief, pathos and pain of loss. The movie follows the life of Karol, an award winning hairdresser from Warsaw who settles in Paris. The movie opens in a court room, where his beautiful wife Dominique (played by a charming Julie Delphy) divorces him on the count that he is unable to ‘consummate’ their marriage. Karol ends up loosing everything to his wife in this process. He is devasted by his loss of his wife who he loves to the point of obsession.

A crestfallen and disheveled Karol is seen singing ballads at a train station where he meets a grim pole ‘Mikolaj’. It is very difficult for the viewer not feel for Karol’s character (played brilliantly by Zbigniew Zamachowski) as he starts reminding us of one of those Chaplin’s tramps.

In one of the many interviews on this movie Kieslowski mentions that Karol’s (polish for Charlie) character was inspired by many Chaplin movies and this was his tribute to the great actor. As I saw the movie I felt that the harbinger of any creative endeavor is observation. Any event, object or living being that forms the basis of an original idea can be an inspiration. Karol’s character is filled with pathos on the beginning but slowly turns sinister. Kieslowski, interestingly, takes the shelter of Chaplinsque comedy to develop this half-comic half-tragic character.

Coming back to the story, ‘Mikolaj’ first sympathizes then offers to help Karol move to Poland. Without a passport to cross the border, in one of the movies most compelling scenes, Karol has to pass in a suitcase of his polish friend. The suit cases ends up in the hands of thieves who beat him down to pulp. Slowly Karol adapts himself to the polish system rife with corruption and graft. He turns his life around. It is here that the movie takes an unsuspecting turn. Karol encouraged by the shift of equilibrium in his favor tries to avenge his (ex) wife, Dominique.



Does Karol get his revenge? If so, at what cost? Your probably are better off watching the movie. Kieslowski is a much better story teller than I am! Do watch the last scene of the movie more intently.

The movie is filled with White imagery, shown through snow filled Poland. The dialogues are vague and filled with metaphors. It allows the narration to take the viewers through several unsuspecting twists we see through out the movie. I couldn’t agree more with a reviewer who said that Kieslowski can be ‘aesthetic, realistic, devious, straightforward, complex, simple, symbolic or literal’ all in the same movie.

The movie tries to signify the qualities of equality. Kieslowski succeeds in showing that in certain systems some people are more equal than others. The story in a way is Karol’s struggle to gain equality with his wife. What if the cost you have to pay for equality is love and more importantly life itself? Is equality worth fighting for then?

This movie is subtly linked with the ‘Blue’. While we see Julie (Juliette Binnoche) from ‘Bleu’ peeping through the court window in ‘Blanc’ we cannot stop but remember the frame from ‘Bleu’ where Dominique is shown sitting in the court room.

Trios Coleurs – Part 1 Bleu

‘It was an average movie’ declared one of my friends as we were walking out of the theater. Throughout our drive back from the theater both my friends continued to discuss about the movie. One of them thought that the lead actress was hot and the actions scenes were cool and being the one who doesn’t care much for the story gave it thumbs up. The other friend cared for the story so much that he (in an equally emphatic manner) gave it heavy thumbs down. I being the designated driver (and unable to make up my mind) remained a passive listener. Over the rest of the weekend as I was trying to make up my mind on what I thought about the movie, I began wondering what a good film is. Is there something called a perfect movie or is it, as every other human creation, just human.

Not long after this incident happened I chanced upon watching a French movie titled ‘Trois couleurs: Bleu’. It is the first part of the trilogy of colors (the other two being Blanc (white) and rouge – red). The story is from the point of view of a lone survivor of a car accident. The movie is the story of the protagonist (Juile), played by Juliette Binoche, in coming to terms with the grief of loosing her husband (a celebrated composer) and daughter. The movie depends on subtle actions and abstractness and in the process successfully avoids melodrama. In the beginning Julie is cold and indifferent to the world around her as she tries to come to terms with her loss. Kieslowski manages to illustrate this without too many dialogues. The movie is truly reminiscent of the eastern European style of movie making where long pauses and subtle actions take the place of trite dialogues and glycerin filled eyes. The movie sets the mood with the dominant blue imagery as indeed blue color signifies grief.

But ‘Blue’ is not a movie of grief alone. It is the struggle that Juile’s character undergoes to bring closure to her loss. It is this intensely personal process of catharsis that her character goes through to overcome the pain of her loss and thus attain liberation. Again, Kieslowski depicts this journey of the lead character through simple but intimate visuals. The nuanced performance of Juliette Binoche does its part to enhance the intensity of the moments. The background score by Zbigniew Preisner is more than appropriate in developing the mood of the scenes and lingers long after we are done watching the movie.

So what determines the quality of the movie? Cinema like any other art form is a medium of expression. The elemental duty of a movie is to bring to forefront a truth about life with the help of simple yet intense visuals and in the process touch the heart of the viewer. The story is just a landscape, the performers mere colors but it is the simple truth that forms the soul of a movie.

It is from this point of view that this movie scores. True the story is original, the imagery eye-catching and the editing attention grabbing but above all it is the idea, that simple truth constantly lingering in the background, that touches the viewer at a personal level. So is the movie flawless? Hardly so, it is as i put it in the beginning of this review merely human..