In 1994 at the Cannes Film Festival when Quentin Tarantino‘s “Pulp Fiction” was announced as the winner of the coveted Palme d’Or prize, many in the audience gasped, booed, and nearly rioted. The feeling was Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski‘s “Red,” the masterful finale of his breathtaking Three Colors trilogy was robbed, and look, “Pulp Fiction” might’ve changed American cinema and pop culture and made a big meteor-like crater on the landscape, but there’s no way anyone can tell me that Kieślowski’s “Red,” didn’t deserve the prize instead (to this day there are lots of articles about this controversial moment in cinema, including our own).
READ MORE: The Essentials: The Films Of Krzysztof Kieślowski
I digress, but Krzysztof Kieślowski was/is the Polish Stanley Kubrick and if he didn’t pass away so early at the age of 54 in 1996 (a heart attack, he was a heavy smoker), he would still be regarded as one of the giants of cinema (yes, he’s still considered that by those in the know, but even for mainstream, modern cinephiles, he doesn’t seem to hold the stature that he should). Coincidentally enough, in the foreword to 1991’s book on “Dekalog: The Ten Commandments,” Kieślowski’s prescient, long-form film/ten-part TV series, Kubrick himself wrote a very rare laudatory appraisal of the filmmaker and his constant companion co-screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz (“they do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don’t realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.”)
READ MORE: Krzysztof Kieślowski’s ‘Dekalog’ Is A Masterwork Of Morality, Chance & Fate [Review]
Kieślowski co-wrote all his ambitious and lofty movies with Piesiewicz and in the Three Colors” trilogy, the films “Blue,” “White” and “Red,” they loosely based each one of the films on the three political ideals in the motto of the French Republic: liberty, equality, fraternity.
All of Kieślowski’s movies centered on the metaphysical, the unknown; the ideas of our doppelgänger our other secret lives, with heavy doses of fate, chance, destiny, and morality. The breathtakingly humanist “Three Colors” trilogy wasn’t much different starring Juliette Binoche as a grieving widow in “Blue,” Julie Delpy as a woman trying to divorce her husband in “White,” and the late, great Jean‑Louis Trintignant and Irene Jacob in a story about a retired judge spying on his neighbors and the ethical and moral questions posed when he is caught. The films are all also loosely tied together in a way we won’t spoil, but Kieślowski is the rare filmmaker that has at least three masterpieces to his name (‘Three Colors,’ ‘The Dekalog’ and “The Double Life Of Veronique“).
Here’s the synopsis for each film in the trilogy:
THREE COLORS: BLUE
In the devastating first film of the Three Colors trilogy, Juliette Binoche gives a tour de force performance as Julie, a woman reeling from the tragic death of her husband and young daughter. But Blue is more than just a blistering study of grief; it’s also a tale of liberation, as Julie attempts to free herself from the past while confronting truths about the life of her late husband, a composer. Shot in sapphire tones by Sławomir Idziak, and set to an extraordinary operatic score by Zbigniew Preisner, Blue is an overwhelming sensory experience.
THREE COLORS: WHITE
The most playful and also the grittiest of Kieślowski’s Three Colors films follows the adventures of Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski), a Polish immigrant living in France. The hapless hairdresser opts to leave Paris for his native Warsaw when his wife (Julie Delpy) sues him for divorce (her reason: their marriage was never consummated) and then frames him for arson after setting her own salon ablaze. White, which goes on to chronicle Karol Karol’s elaborate revenge plot, manages to be both a ticklish dark comedy about the economic inequalities of Eastern and Western Europe and a sublime reverie about twisted love.
THREE COLORS: RED
Krzysztof Kieślowski closes his Three Colors trilogy in grand fashion, with an incandescent meditation on fate and chance, starring Irène Jacob as a sweet-souled yet somber runway model in Geneva whose life dramatically intersects with that of a bitter retired judge, played by Jean‑Louis Trintignant. Meanwhile, just down the street, a seemingly unrelated story of jealousy and betrayal unfolds. Red is an intimate look at forged connections and a splendid final statement from a remarkable filmmaker at the height of his powers.
The new 4k restorations of the “Three Colors” trilogy open at Film at Lincoln Center with a national rollout to follow. “Three Colors: Blue” opens July 8, “Three Colors: White” opens August 5, and “Three Colors: Red” opens August 26. There’s a strong case to be made that Kieślowski is the greatest filmmaker most movie lovers don’t know and this is the perfect opportunity to rectify this ongoing cinematic transgression. Watch the 4k restoration trailer below:
