018 - Three Colors: White, 1994, France, Poland; Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

018 - Three Colors: White, 1994, France, Poland; Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski.

The film opens on a piece of luggage--a hard-shell burgundy suitcase--travelling on a conveyer belt through the airport, going from the airplane to baggage claim.

What is in the suitcase?  Who owns it?  Where is it going?  Why?

Some people really are that desperate.

She wants a divorce.

Why?

Has he been unfaithful?  No.

Is he abusive?  No.

Is he an addict?  No.

Does he fail to provide for her?  No.

Has he stopped giving her attention?  No.

Has he stopped loving her?  No.  He loves her very much.

Has she stopped loving him?  No!  She loves him still.

So, why?

He cannot perform.

Really?

She wants him.  She wants to be close to him.  She wants to be intimate with him.  She has needs.

He is Polish.  She is French.  The divorce proceedings require an interpreter.

Two married people require an interpreter at their divorce proceedings.

Could communication be an issue?

In yesterday's movie, Three Colors: Blue, Julie, played by Juliette Binoche, goes to the courthouse in search of another woman.  She stumbles upon a court proceeding but is asked to leave.

This is that court proceeding--the divorce trial in Three Colors: White.

The films begin to connect to one another.

Dominique is granted her divorce.

Outside the court, he chases her to her car.  She leaves the burgundy suitcase on the pavement.  She drives away.  He is left with it.

He finds himself on the floor of the Metro, playing his comb like a musical instrument, blowing through it, wrapped in a handkerchief.

A man approaches.  They talk.  They become friends.  The man knows he is Polish.

In The Wages of Fear, two Frenchmen became friends in South America because one heard the song being hummed by the other and recognized it as a song of his country.

In Three Colors: White, two Polish men become friends in France because one hears the song being hummed by the other, through a comb, and recognizes it as a song of his country.

But then there is that burgundy suitcase.  He has it now with him in the subway.

The new friend offers to hire him on behalf of someone to kill that person.  Karol, our protagonist, does not need money that badly.

What a horrifying request.

But he does want to return to Poland, now that he has lost his reason for living in Paris.

He arrives home, and we see that he is a barber who owns his own barbershop.  His name is on the sign.  How long have they kept the place going without him?

Karol needs a job, and he gets one in an area where he is less than competent--a security guard.  He rides with his new colleagues in the car one day, and he overhears their conversation when they think he is asleep.

That conversation will change his life.

Karol has a plan.  He still misses his wife, longs for her, but now he has a plan.  He works hard.  Things begin to change.  He becomes successful.  He enacts his plan.

The story takes a path that will surprise you.

And surprise you again.

In the end, how do you feel?

How does she?

How does he?

You may respond one way and then another.

Choices have consequences.

And they are living them.