Three Colours: White

White is the English language title of the 1993 French language film, Blanc (available with English subtitles).

Co-written, produced, and directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, White is the second in the Three Colors trilogy, following Blue and preceding Red.

Three Colors: White:

File:TCWhite.jpg

Executive Producer: Yvon Crenn
Directed by: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Screenplay: Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Krzysztof Kieslowski
Musical Score: Zbigniew Preisner

STARRING:

Zbigniew Zamachowski: "Karol Karol"
Julie Delpy: "Dominique Vidal"
Janusz Gajos: "Mikolaj"
Jerzy Stuhr: "Jurek"

AWARDS:

"Silver Bear" Award for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival

Writer/director Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy was made back-to-back beginning in 1993. Each of the films takes its name from the colors of the French flag and its themes from the ideals represented by those colors as defined during the French Revolution:

Bleu/Blue -- liberty;
Blanc/White -- equality;
Rouge/Red -- friendship.

In this film, equality is the second message of the "Three Colors" trilogy and that fundamental principle is seen in the male protagonist, Karol Karol, who will seek what he thinks is equality in from his marriage.

After a brief opening, and seemingly unrelated scene of a suitcase on an airport carousel, the story quickly focuses on the Paris divorce court with the same trial going as when Juliette Binoche’s character in the first film of this trilogy, "Blue," mistakenly peers inside and only fleetingly hears the voice of Karol pleading with the judge. Like "Blue," the film makes use of blue filters and blue lighting to convey a mood, appropriately not as dark.

The Polish Karol does not understand the French language but his lawyer translates a message that, after the judge’s questioning, makes it clear his soon to be ex-wife Dominique does not love him. It had been a whirlwind romance and quick marriage but immediately turns sour. The grounds for the divorce is a humiliating indictment: Karol was unable to consummate the marriage. (The film made in pre Viagra days). To add to Karol’s pain, he now believes she never loved him, has used him, and the Court is the vehicle to take her and everything else from him.

Following their court appearance, he shows up at Dominique’s place of work. Her passion for him remains but when he fails to perform again, her pain is clear to the viewer, but not to Karol. She screams at him that he cannot understand a word she says in French and adds: "You don’t understand that I want you, that I need you," and her unbearable pain makes her drive him away.

Unknown to the hapless Karol, the Court has frozen his bank debit card pending their property settlement, and he has his card confiscated while attempting to obtain some money. The card is blue.

Penniless, a disheveled Karol is living in a Paris subway station, where he begs for handouts from passers-by. Performing as a musician, using the only thing he has, he folds a handkerchief over a comb and begins to hum songs from his native Poland. To add to his degradation, a stranger passes by, tosses a franc into the case and tells him his fly is open. But, recognizing the Polish song, he speaks to Karol in his native tongue.

The stranger, Mikolaj, and Karol become friends, there relationship based on a unique sympathy for each other: Karol has lost his wife and his property, while Mikolaj, who has money and a loving family is dissatisfied with life and only wants to die. Mikolaj helps him to get back to Poland, and although the return proves a hazardous journey, once there, Karol is at first trying to learn to speak French so he can win Dominique back then he will become determined to get revenge on the woman who has so badly betrayed him.

While Karol Karol comes off as something less than a genius, and a character that warrants little sympathy, he displays enough ingenuity, albeit through means that are less than admirable, to make himself rich. Success does not relieve his obsession with Dominique and after she hangs up the phone when he calls her, he plans retribution, wanting her to feel the same equality of humiliation. Each time he thinks of his ex-wife, she is seen entering a darkened room but he sees it as a previous scene of her with another man in a darkened room and cannot understand that it is her own sorrow.

His faked death, and a will that leaves Dominique everything, brings her to his funeral in Poland when a trap has been set: she will be blamed for his murder. But, watching his own funeral through binoculars, he sees her tears and realizes he has made a terrible mistake. Karol shows up in Dominique’s hotel room, makes love to her, but knows it is too late to put an end to his plot to destroy her without destroying others, including his friend Mikolaj who had helped him so much. In the end, living in hiding and doing what he did at the beginning of the film, paying expensive lawyers, he sees her, but cannot have her because of his own doings.

At the very end of the final film of Kieslowski’s trilogy, "Red," the conclusion of Karol and Dominique’s story is revealed in a simple fleeting moment.

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s skill in weaving a story he co-wrote, is evident again in "White." Images are interspersed in simple sequences that seem unconnected to the scenes in which they occur. And, each time there is no immediate understanding for the image. As such, the viewer is forced to pay attention to detail -- and to think. This technique of forward referencing is one that broadens the scope of "White," and similarly, furthers connections to the "Three Colors."

This film, at first viewing, appears to be the weakest of the trilogy. But, like the others, it is multi-layered and requires more than one viewing to gain a full understanding that, in the end, leaves only the viewer to interpret its many messages. The brilliant music of Zbigniew Preisner is barely evident, unlike in "Blue."

Roger Ebert calls White (and the entire trilogy) a masterpiece.