THREE COLORS: RED
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Irene Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintingnant, Jean-Pierre Lorit. Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski.
Welcome to that annual year-end tradition, "Guess Which Foreign Language Film Gets Jobbed By the Motion Picture Academy Rules." Every year the Academy claims it's trying to make the qualification requirements more fair; every year, it seems they come up with more restrictions than the Book of Leviticus. Politics and arbitrary interpretations continue to rob the category of worthy nominees, and this year will be no exception: RED, the third installment in Krzysztof Kieslowski's extraordinary THREE COLORS trilogy, has been rejected as an entry from Switzerland. The Academy should rectify that slight immediately and nominate it as one of the best films of the year in any language, a beautiful, resonant work that is the best of three very good films.
RED stars Irene Jacob as Valentine, a young student and model living in Geneva. Her life takes an odd turn one day when she hits a dog with her car, and attempts to return it to its owner. But the owner, Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintingnant), appears less than concerned about the dog, or much of anything for that matter. A bitter retired judge, Joseph spends his days alone in his home listening in on his neighbors' cellular telephone conversations. At first Valentine is disgusted by Joseph, but eventually the two develop a curious friendship as Valentine learns about the tragedies of Joseph's life.
As with the previous two installments in Kieslowski's trilogy, RED represents one of the three principles behind the French tricolor. Red is for fraternity, but as was also true of BLUE and WHITE, the treatment of that theme is far from the obvious. While on one level RED is about the friendship between Valentine and Joseph, it is also about the way all lives interconnect, about a fraternity of all humanity. A parallel storyline involves a young lawyer named Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) who is preparing to become a judge, and his relationship with his girlfriend (Federique Feder). Gradually it becomes clear that this story is meant to mirror events in Joseph's life decades earlier, and it appears that they will be equally tragic. However, Kieslowski and his co-screenwriter Krzystof Piesiewicz use these two stories to show how redemption operates in its own time, and how chance occurrences connect lives in ways which can't possibly be expected.
This brings up the question of whether it is necessary to have seen BLUE and WHITE to fully appreciate RED. I feel irresponsible discouraging seeing this film in even the slightest manner, because it has so much to offer on its own merits. The production design is stunning, and Zbigniew Preisner's score again provides amazing depth. Irene Jacob, who starred in Kieslowski's THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE, gives an incredibly sensitive performance as Valentine, who finds herself on an unexpected journey of moral discovery. She is matched by Jean-Louis Trintingnant's Joseph, and their scenes together are something truly special.
That said, I truly believe that there are layers of RED which are best understood when viewed through the lens of the complete trilogy. For example, both BLUE and WHITE feature a scene where an elderly person struggles to place a bottle in a recycling bin. The scene appears in RED as well, but in this case Valentine recognizes the struggle and helps the old woman. And in RED's emotional climax, the lead characters from all three films appear, and an understanding of what those other characters have been through to end up together makes the scene infinitely more potent. That is what makes RED so special: it has a scope and a heart which, when combined with BLUE and WHITE, is truly breathtaking. This is the work of a filmmaker at the height of his creative powers, which makes Kieslowski's announcement that he is retiring a genuine tragedy. RED stands independently as a great film; the three colors together create a miraculous tapestry, one of the great film experiences of the decade.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 couleurs: 10.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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