Three Colors: White Review- By Michael Carlisle

 Title: Three Colors: White
Year: 1993
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Country(s): France/Poland
Language(s): French/Polish

Krzysztof Kieslowski's second part of his Three Colors Trilogy is a memorable masterpiece that tells chapters about love, equality and revenge. Three Colors: White is particularly interesting because it can be seen as a film about people or about nations. Specifically about Poland and its relation to the rest of Europe. I first saw White when it was distributed by the Criterion Collection last year. I found myself quite amazed and enthralled by this film, watching it over and over and finding myself noticing new important themes & instances of technical genius.

The film involves a Polish man named Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) who marries a french woman named Domininque and moves to Paris. The marriage breaks down and Dominique divorces Karol,  cruelly forcing him into the life of a metro beggar and eventually back to Poland. However, he never forgets Dominique and while building a new life for himself in Warsaw he begins to plot his great revenge against her.

Three Colors: White is both dramatic and comedic in  tone and style. Zbigniew Zamachowski was told by Kieslowski to add a "Chaplin" touch to his character to make his human quaities stand out. This adds an extra, more personal layer to Karol's Character. If we view this as a political film we can see that Karol's impotence & poverty in the beginning of the film is a mirror of Poland. The baby brother of Europe, easily defeated by the German army, they have always struggled to keep up with their European siblings. Like Karol, Poland also rises to keep up with Europe the same way Karol does, by shady capitalist techniques. Perhaps with this film Kieslowski is saying that something honest about Poland died when they tried to be like the rest of Europe too quickly.

We can also see this film as one about the nature of love and relationships. Three Colors: White speaks about often people hurt the ones they love out of fear of being hurt themselves.  At the very beginning, the theme of the film is expressed right away. Karol Karol observes the pigeons, he loves nature, but the pigeon poops on him and he rethinks his love. Throughout the rest of the film he completely disregards nature.This reminds me of a girl I knew, who would date a guy, get dumped and then pronounce "All guys are the same!"

I think with the ending of the film (the love sign language) Kieslowski is making an important statement about relationships. In order for a relationship to work we must toss out all the baggage (In the film Karol's only possession after his divorce is literally his baggage) of past relationships and not fear getting hurt. Since white on the French Flag stands for equality, perhaps Kieslowski is suggesting that for a relationship to work there must be equal love & pain between partners. The minute one person has power over the other, is the minute the relationship begins to fall.

In conclusion, though Three Colors: White is not my favourite of the Three Colors Trilogy, nor is it critically regarded as the best, it sure is an amazing and thoughtful film that has loads to teach while being incredibly entertaining. This is a film that I can watch over and over and not get bored. An absolutely brilliant piece of work. Praise it! 5/5