Trois Couleurs: Rouge/ Three Colors: Red

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Country: Poland/ France
Year: 1994
Cast: Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant
Rating: **** (Masterpiece)


Ever wondered why a set of numbers repeats itself in decimals e.g. the value of π. As if the it has nothing to tell you. Our lives, oddly enough, have the tendency to repeat itself in some form. No, it's not déjà vu. No. It's more than that. Einstein said, I don't believe God operates this universe by throwing dice. Indeed true but then how? Is there any pattern to our existence? Do certain incidents or maybe images in our lives recur? If they do, why? Kieslowski is no ordinary director. By 'ordinary' I mean the following.
To certain filmmakers Cinema is entertainment to others just fun to some it's life. To Kieslowski it's all the more than that. It's a platform to question our behavior, our existence.

In this small universe we all are very far, out of our reach, like islands that desperately need intimacy. We are covered by some glass we can't break. A sense of isolation (that we experienced in Babel). A man's (here Kieslowski's) inner self is painfully fortified from others to reach. I personally have been experiencing it for as long I remember. That's something beyond words. No one reaches there and that empty void seems abysmal.

Here, in the end of this trilogy Kieslowski provide some hope. A hope that things will get normal, that the creator does believe in compensatory action. An act of balance. The three colors Blue. Red and White each defining some virtue of human existence namely Liberty, equality and fraternity. A window to explore existential ideas. Double lives and recurring images have always been central in Kieslowski's work. In Double life of Veronique, he dealt with the issue of double existence. I would request you to watch these movies with audio commentary on a DVD. It's a beautiful shot-by-shot explanation of elaborate use of light, symbols, sound and of course colors by Kieslowski and cinematographer Poitr Sobocinski. An intelligent explanatio by film critic Annette Insdorf. But don't go for it in the first viewing as it may be distracting.