Three Colors: White (1994)

White is a Polish film in Polish and French with English subtitles. The film is the second series in the Three Colours trilogy which started with the film Blue and ends with Red. The film takes place in France where a man named Karol Karol whose wife Dominique just divorced him. To make matters work Karol's bank account is frozen and he has no money and no place to go. In the subway he meets a man named Mikolaj who helps him get back to his homeland of Poland. Karol eventually gets there, but not the way he planned on. Once he gets to Poland some friends help him get back on his feet and establish himself. Soon he is doing fine, but is still upset over what Dominique did to him. So with some more help he plans a scheme of revenge to get back at her. Winner of The Silver Berlin Bear for Best Director (Krzysztof Kieslowski, who also co-wrote the film) at The Berlin International Film Festival. White has good direction, a good script, good performances by the entire cast, good original music and good cinematography. White is a very interesting film. From where it started off in the beginning I had no idea how it would end or what would happen next. It kept me following the movie eagerly waiting to see what happened next. It is a very smart and sharp story and the acting and great direction make this film really stand out as well. This film is in no ways similar to Blue, the previous film in the series and I really admire the director for making two totally different films that each work really well. I really loved White because of it's sharp script and because it kept me compelled and interested and I really did not know how it was going to turn out. After these two great films I'm looking forward to completing the series by watching Red. Judging by what I thought of Blue and White, I'm sure I'm going to like Red very much as well.

Fmovies: Review In A Nutshell:

White tells the story of a male Polish hairdresser, Karol, who was left by his wife, Dominique, with nothing. He deals with this loss by going back to Poland and rebuilding himself.

The first I noticed when going through this film was how light it all felt, all the weight that I felt on the director's previous film, Blue, were mostly lifted. I wasn't so much disappointed with the change in tone as there are many moments in this film where the plot and narrative benefited from it, but I was underwhelmed by Kieslowski's execution. The director couldn't seem to make me feel comprehensively invested to the protagonist, as I personally felt he wasn't explored enough and the intentions of the character wasn't truly clear to me throughout.

Thankfully I enjoyed the journey that the protagonist has taken, as we get to see him start off on the bottom of the world, figuratively speaking of course, and building himself up slowly to becoming a respectable and "fulfilled" man. He doesn't reach this stage without playing dirty of course, Karol is still a normal human being and would do whatever he can in order to get ahead, but it was handled in such a way that we don't think less of him. I saw this rebuilding as just a constructive coping mechanism towards the tragic loss he just suffered, and I think in a way all of what he has made for himself was all for her or at least something to prove to her. During the film's third act, we can see that he is still in pain and even though he could get anything he wants there is still a void in him that hasn't been filled, and that is love. It was her love that he has always wanted, and he blames himself for not being able to show and prove that to her during their marriage. For Karol, content doesn't come from wealth, respect and fame, it comes from Dominique.

The film's photography was also a major change from the first film of the trilogy. Colors seem to be warmer, and the color seems to dominate a lot of the film's images, possibly enforcing the idea of purity and beauty. It connects really well with the film's plot and narrative, making certain situations coming off as comically charged rather than dire, giving us a glimpse of how the film would feel during its resolution. The score also was change from the previous film, switching from the grand and dramatic tone to something much lighter and sharper. I found the score to be effective, particularly during the moments where the film wants us to feel sorry for Karol or when he examines or thinks about his one true love, Dominique. We are able to understand his fascination with her, and the music helps support that.

Zbigniew Zamachowski plays the film's protagonist, Karol. He was wonderful in the role, though it wasn't at the same level of amazing as Binoche in Blue. The actor was able to manipulate my feelings towards the character, with one moment feeling highly sorry then the next moment feeling proud of what he has become. He was able to change the appearance of his exterior while keeping his internal qualities the same. Julie Delpy was also pretty good in the role, but it would have been better if she was given a bit more screen time; then again this is Karol's story, not hers.

White may not be a step up as I hoped it would be from Blue, but it's still a great piece of work from Kieslowski. Hopefully Red would be at least just as good as this, if not better.

Another interesting chapter in the saga, it is not as technically impressive as 'Bleu' but the story's premise is certainly more fascinating this time. Delpy pretty much plays a stereotype of evil, but as her soon to be divorced husband, Zamachowski is great, and it is quite interesting to follow his experiences, even if his motivations are a bit hard to relate to. Kieslowski uses some great camera angles once again, and this is another very well shot film, as well as one with some brilliantly fitting music, plus slow motion is used very effectively. There are ideas about love, equality and revenge, the plot is intriguing, and there are some very intense moments, making it another solid entry in the trilogy, even if it is not as critically acclaimed as the first film, 'Trois Couleurs: Bleu' or the last film, 'Trois Couleurs: Rouge'.

Three Colors: White fmovies. Among user comments for this film, one claims the film is really about marriage, another assigns "stubborn spitefulness" to Delpy (she just wants her man to be able to get it on), or how it's about French society. Others seem to have taken Kieslowski at face value when he said that each film in the trilogy is inspired by the French republican motto and try to explain how this is the "egalite" film. Kieslowski may have coaxed funds from the French by giving them something they could buy into in a cultural way (he's pretty much said so) but we have no reason to rest there.

What makes this interesting is that the story such as you see it never really happened. Kieslowski makes a point to show us a man being flown to Poland in a suitcase, a hairdresser who is turned into a business mogul just like that, or why Delpy is locked up in prison with no evidence.

Blue was about memory, something that happened in the past and now resurfaces to color reality. This one is about imagined anticipation: desire. We have a marriage breaking apart, the courtroom bit is your anchor and probably the only safely real one. She used to love him until he couldn't get hard any more, but even this might be his own failure to save his marriage (a blow to male ego) taking shape as male impotence to consummate.

The rest of the film is wish-fulfillment fantasy where he pities himself as broke and homeless, endures all kinds of hardship until he picks himself up and becomes rich and powerful (that's virility for his male ego). He then watches her cry over his grave and stages his comeuppance after a night of giving her the best sex of her life of course.

This has all been the narrator's vindictive fantasy of a slighted ego. But love melts away this fantasy. He never leaves for Hong Kong as planned. He chooses to visit her in prison instead. Watching her through theater glasses from below, she motions to him about getting married again. It's all about a narrator living through the illusory reality that desire creates.

Compared to the other two in the trilogy, it comes out on the slight side, looking a bit like an episode from the Dekalog.

Seeing revenge in "Blanc" it's like you left the theater a couple of minutes before the end of the movie. The final scene is the explanation of Karol's strange actions. It is not a revenge story, it is a story of obsessive desire of possession. The "love"-story of Karol for Dominique. He tried to posses Dominique, he becomes a wealthy man and he is able to do ANYTHING to have her. Well, `anything' includes evil things. When a bird flies away from the master that "loves" it so much, what should be done? To put the bird into a cage. In this way, Karol will be able to see, feed, speak and listen Dominique every day. Karol finally posses Dominique.

It is not only difficult to comment separately on the three parts of Kieslowski's trilogy, it seems obvious that the filmmaker wants us to do just the opposite: view them in order, Blue, White, and Red, and consider them together as one complete work. It is true they are distinct stories with distinct themes: liberty, equality, fraternity, and each them is developed with unique applications of intrigue and artistry. They are each well worth seeing independently, but I believe they are best seen as one work. Collectively, I would rate the trilogy as a 9; separately, I place each in my top ten for the years 1993 and 1994.

White is the fabric of a bride, chaste and pure at the outset of her marriage; later it is the flash of an orgasm in the dark; and then .... But any more said of the instances of white in this film might spoil it for the first-time viewer. Unlike Three Colors: Blue, White is a more plot-oriented movie, with two main characters to Blue's one. And this is as it should be. Blue's theme of Liberty, the first word of France's motto, is an individual's principle, while White's theme of Equality, the French motto's second word, requires at least two people. The central quest for liberty is personal; the struggle for equality is fundamentally social. White is the most conventional of the three Color films, and while it is still one of my ten top films of 1994, I rate it an 8, slightly less than the highly visual Blue and the mind-bending Red.