Three Colours: Red

Trois couleurs: Rouge; drama / art-film, France / Poland / Switzerland, 1994; D: Krzysztof Kieslowski, S: Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Frédérique Feder, Jean-Pierre Lorit, Samuel Le Bihan, Marion Stalens

Switzerland. Valentine Dussaut is a 23-year old photo model with a good heart. Her boyfriend Michel is temporarily in Britain, so their only contact is through the telephone. One day Valentine accidentally hits a dog with her car and decides to take him with her. When she decides to return the dog to the owner, she is shocked to find out it's a cynical, old, retired judge, Kern, who is intercepting telephone calls and conversations of his neighbors and doesn't believe in love. Although she doesn't approve that kind of behavior, Valentine can't help but to be somehow fascinated by him. The two of them become friends and soul mates. Valentine takes a ferry that sinks over La Manche, but survives thanks to love. Kern observes her on TV news.

"Three Colours: Red", the last film from Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy that symbolically handles the meaning of colors of the French flag / three French revolutionary ideals (blue for liberty, white for equality, red for fraternity), brought the author artistic immortality. "Red"—that a lot of critics consider to be the best contribution of the trilogy—is, was and will be a supreme metaphysical, esoteric, lyrical and touching art-film, an unusual and fluid masterpiece that defies any rules and norms in observing a spiritual "fraternity" of two different people that connect.  The beautiful heroine Valentine is an excellent character—in one scene she tells her boyfriend Michel, who is living abroad, over the telephone that she felt so lonely that she slept with his jacket in her bed the last night—but the one of the retired judge Kern is also interesting, who cynically gave up on love. Despite being an art-film, "Red" is actually much more elegant, attractive and quirky than many other stiff art films because it possesses a magical musical score and a splendid visual style—for instance, 55 minutes into the film, there is a stylish scene of Valentine lying upside down after aerobic class, reaching for a newspaper behind her, standing up and turning around to read it, while another person takes a towel next to her. The story is quiet, a little episodic, somewhat too short and simple, and in the opening shots it did not indicate to be anything special, but it slowly bloomed into a magical experience. 

Valentine and Kern cannot stand each other at first, but they slowly develop empathy. They find out that they really understand each other, in a perfect, but platonic way, although he is 40 years older than her, and wonder what could have been if they were born the same year. As Kern tells her: "I stopped believing. Or maybe I never met the woman. Perhaps I just never met you". Kieslowski often directs Valentine and Kern standing either above or under each other, all until the sequence in the theater, where two of their plastic cups have an identical amount of coffee, and they sit on the same level, signalling their closeness. To make things even more interesting, Kieslowski added a little subplot of "quantum entanglement" in the form of a law student, Auguste, who is betrayed by his girlfriend, retelling the event that Kern experienced when he was young and that made him cynical, except that it is told in the present time, in Valentine's neighborhood. It shows patterns of human experience repeating themselves again and again throughout history. The allegorical ending is perfect and underwent several interpretations of its meaning. In it, a ferry sinks, but all the characters from previous movies of the trilogy, and this one, survive, representing the three ideals: liberty, equality, fraternity. One explanation could be that humanity without them is doomed to sink, to self-destruct, but together they are stronger than any tragedy. As Valentine is saved, her hair is wet and she wears a blanket, while a red flag is seen behind her, mirroring the exact same pose she had during the photo shoot at the beginning of the movie—and she is standing next to Auguste, Kern's alter ego. Kern watches her on TV and then has a realization—yes, the woman he loved in his young days failed him, but his love archetype lives on in individuals like Valentine. This pattern takes several forms and cannot be destroyed, reappearing generation after generation. Love isn't just one person's experience, and as long as someone continues it, it is immortal. As the closing credits start to roll and the musical score sets in, it seems as if some invisible aura of magic illuminated the whole film.

Grade:++++