THREE COLORS: WHITE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Janusz Gajos. Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski.
Give this to Krzysztof Kieslowski: he's been busy and he hasn't been repeating himself. It is understandable that he announced his retirement from filmmaking at this year's Cannes Film Festival where RED, the third segment of his THREE COLORS trilogy, premiered; three films in two years is enough to burn anyone out. Still, it is a shame to see such a versatile director leave the scene. Last year's BLUE was a marvelous psychological drama; WHITE is an acidic little comedy. WHITE is also somewhat less satisfying than BLUE, well-acted and directed but suffering from basic deficiencies in motivation and characterization.
WHITE tells the story of Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski), a meek Polish hairdresser living in Paris with his beautiful new wife Dominique (Julie Delpy). As the film opens, Dominique is suing Karol for divorce, on the grounds that he has been unable to consummate their marriage. His bank accounts frozen and thrown out on the street, Karol finds himself reduced to panhandling on the Metro. There he meets Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos), a kindly but depressive bridge player who helps Karol return to Poland. Once back in his homeland, Karol sets out to change his life. Through complicated wheeling and dealing, Karol puts himself in a position of power, from which he will be able to even the score with Dominique.
Kieslowski does a superb job from the outset of establishing that Karol is a man who is, both literally and figuratively, on the receiving end of life's excrement. Humiliated, broke and cuckolded (over the phone, no less, in a scene both hysterical and sad), Karol is a perfect stand-in for anyone who has felt positively overwhelmed by life. Zbigniew Zamachowski gives a delightful physical performance as the rumpled but sympathetic Karol, appearing perpetually bewildered and on the verge of tears. However, he is less successful at conveying Karol's transformation into a slick go-getter. Like many events in WHITE, the change occurs too quickly, and it seems to be presented as an article of faith that this is something that was always within Karol, just requiring the right setting--at least I didn't see it on the screen.
Even more perplexing is Dominique, whose feelings for Karol are believably convoluted but who turns into a bizarre creation by the film's conclusion. There is a surreal quality to the events of WHITE's last fifteen minutes, a quality which sabotages any sense of character. The sequence which theoretically explains this change (featuring an effective use of an all-white screen as an accent) doesn't, at least not as believably as it should. Julie Delpy, like Zamachowski, nails her character in the beginning of the film, but drifts into something unrecognizable by the final scene.
It's unfortunate that the characters are so unfocused, because Kieslowski's exploration of equality is intriguingly multi-faceted. Most obviously, there is Karol's attempt to "get even" with Dominique, an attempt with unexpectedly successful results. However, there is also an examination of post-Communist economics in Poland, and how Karol builds from his luck two-franc piece into a wealthy entrepreneur. As Karol's brother notes, "This is Europe now," as Karol finds he can indeed buy anything. Money serves both as a tool of equality and inequality, allowing Kieslowski to question the benefits of the new world order. WHITE is full of interesting ideas, more than ten average films put together, but they're just not executed all that smoothly. Moments of brilliance shine out in WHITE; others are dulled by chaotic characterizations.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 shades of white: 6.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews