Kieslowski - Three Colors Trilogy - Poll

voted blue, which i remember chiefly for juliette binoche's incredible performance and the masterful way that kieslowski stages the opening car crash - lyrical and terrifying cinema.

veronique is my favourite, i;m total sucker for 'supernatural' art movies

I didn't find the "metaphysics" of Veronique compelling, and without that armature the two stories weren't either. He paced the protagonist's musing and noodling more interesting in Blue and Red.

Moreover, maybe it's her age but Irene Jacob's guilelessness was less sticky in Red.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I didn't find the "metaphysics" of Veronique compelling, and without that armature the two stories weren't either. He paced the protagonist's musing and noodling more interesting in Blue and Red.

it's the storytelling that's so beautiful in veronique, i think; kieslowski's so confident, and thinks highly enough of his audience to tell the stories v sparely + elliptically, leaving us to fill in the jumps and blanks. seeing her musing + noodling, detached and inert, pretty much separated from the urgency of the guys she hangs out with and the transience of everything else going on, becomes this compelling, involving focus, to me. it's one of my favourites, on account of just how well it's accessorised & presented & what it elicits in me as a character study.

nah even that's better in white -- his reassured smirk at knowing that there are people worse off than him.

I may be mis-remembering, but I thought Karol was asleep, no?

wiki sez:

A recurring image related to the spirit of the film is that of elderly people recycling bottles; in Three Colors: White, an old man in Paris is trying to recycle a bottle but cannot reach the container and Karol looks at him with a sinister grin on his face (in the spirit of equality). In Three Colors: Blue, an old woman in Paris is recycling bottles and Julie does not notice her (in the spirit of freedom); in Three Colors: Red an old woman cannot reach the hole of the container and Valentine helps her (in the spirit of solidarity).

so it may be blue you're thinking of; i think binoche's eyes are closed.

Saw Blue for the first time ever tonight (another one I taped years ago, but held out for a chance to see all three in a theatre). I guess I was in just the right mood; liked it a lot. Looking forward to White tomorrow and Red on Sunday.

i think blue is the weakest, white is v underrated

I'm gonna buy all three of these this week, I'm thinking...

The Criterion box is due in November...

White ambled along and held my interest, but I didn't like it nearly as much as Blue. I found the ending puzzling, unless I'm trying to read too much into it. Glad I'll get to finish with the one that won this poll.

Mild spoiler, but the ending of White is explained a bit at the end of Red.

Look forward to it. I missed Delpy's character in Blue--where did she appear?

i don't think you see her, but you hear karol's voice (poor Polish Guy Who Played Karol, doomed forever to be called "karol" by westerners) when binoche sticks her head into the wrong courtroom.

IIRC, you don't really see her, as she isn't in Binoche's pov when she walks into the courtroom. She may just be out of focus.

X-post

That's funny--so I was right when I thought I saw Binoche stick her head in the courtroom in White.

I almost walked out of Red tonight, knowing I could watch my old tape at home; for the first half-hour, there was some technical issue where every couple of minutes the image would scramble for a few seconds. The rest of the way it only happened a couple of times.

I liked Blue the best, then Red, then White. I knew very little going in, so the ending was a complete surprise. You could almost run a separate poll for Binoche/Delpy/Jacob. That would be a tougher call for me.

Is the Criterion box only going to be released on Blu-Ray?

...still looking forward to the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow film cycle trilogy.

Criterion box will be on both standard & blu. Aside from the odd special feature, they have yet to do a "blu only" title.

Looking for it on Amazon and coming up only with bluray, but maybe I should check their website...?

Cyan, Magenta and Yellow

Colors asscoiated with what, policially?

Found it on Amazon. It was probably just a glitch.

xp
Don't forget the tragically unfinished Black.

Thanks loads Grisso. Probably just had problems bcz I'm on my phone.

After I saw Blue last month, I was thinking about how its ending would seem to be the basis for similar scenes in Donnie Darko ("Mad World") and Magnolia ("Wise Up")--the camera gliding over various characters in different places as pretty music plays in the background. I like all three scenes a lot. Is there anything that predates Blue in that vein, or is it the blueprint?

Around the same time, Altman did it with "To Hell with Love" in Short Cuts.

how totally weird this thread exists and i see it - i watched blue for the 2nd time yesterday, pretty much depriving myself the next day (today) of a couple hours sleep so i could watch it continuously. i loved the movie the first time and really came to appreciate it this viewing. i really thinks its mostly for reasons of subject matter, whereas i find white/red to be interesting stories; there was just something so utterly ridiculous yet so, so, so believably about juliette binoche's performance as a woman who grieves in all the wrong ways. i'm honestly obsessive enough that i've rewound to specific points of the movie in which she cuts a person off squarely with a solid, curt "No". Jesus.

After I saw Blue last month, I was thinking about how its ending would seem to be the basis for similar scenes in Donnie Darko ("Mad World")

one of the things I liked about donnie darko was the clear nod to blue

according to imdb blue and short cuts screened at the venice film festival in '93, though blue was shown earlier in jan at the warsaw film festival

had no memory of red bowling-ball shot

(or much else)

I like all three scenes a lot. Is there anything that predates Blue in that vein, or is it the blueprint?

My question, a few posts above. I found something earlier that is very similar; there's a sequence in Welcome to L.A. where you go from character to character while one of Richard Baskin's (horrible) songs plays. Each character's turn ends with him or her staring directly at the camera. I doubt very much that Kieslowski would have been influenced by Welcome to L.A., but I can definitely imagine P.T. Anderson having seen it.

do you have to watch these in order?

im currently reading the wikipedia plot synopsis for three colours blue and i cant remember if i have seen it

You don't need to see them in order.

kieslowski seems so early 90s

he even died in 1996 just to enhance the feeling

ha ha
he is the best though
even just thinking about kieslowski films is nice
watch them in order if you can, 乒乓, there are some echoes between that would make sense in any order but which have some kinda sequential pay-off imo

blue and white are probably interchangeable but red's best last

You had to be lolninteen in 1994 to understand the impact of Red and Pulp Fiction in the same season.

stephen king is writing a 1000p speculative-historical novel about what would have happened if red won the palme in 94

things to do in zurich when you're disassociated

Jean-Louis Trintignat plays a Rotter for the ages

still all about white. "i'm afraid the office may be bugged." "by whom?" "who knows?"

"buy a car! a new tv!" "what for? i never watch it. always the same crap. or... i could bury the money. put it in a little jar." "sure!" "that would be nice."

but you're a russophile -- how can you love a Polish movie

i dunno if "phile"'s the right suffix really

or do you gobble Polish movies as if they were Polish officers and you were the Red Army

actually one of the reasons i dig the movie so much is how 90s-ex-eastern-bloc it is, the way karol attains equality w his estranged french wife by becoming a kinda sleazy capitalist whose actual business is never concretely explained

looks like I'll be seeing Red first