Three Colors: White [Region 2] | Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy

Three Colors: White [Region 2] | Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy | The white is not only a color; it an anima state!

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Three Colors: Whit...

	Three Colors: White [Region 2] Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy average customer review:based on 38 reviews
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highly recommended

A Polish Rapunzel

The first flash of white in this movie is the runny droppings falling from a pigeon onto the overcoat of Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowiski) as he enters a Parisian courthouse. The next time we distinctly see white, it is a porcelain toilet into which Karol is vomitting. With these two scenes occuring so early, you know that white, in this film, represents not purity, but pure cra-. However, if that is true of the color, it is definitely not true of the movie, which is pure gold.

White, in the three-colored French flag, represents equality, and "White" is Kieslowski's second film in the "Three Colors" trilogy -- "Blue" (for liberty) being the first, and "Red" (for fraternity) being the third. And it is our Polish protaginist Karol Karol (a redundancy, a duplicate, even in name) who brings up the issue of equality as "Julie" from "Blue" appears briefly in the rear of the court where Karol's French wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) is divorcing him for his inability to consummate their marriage -- on the wedding night or since.

Karol is a relatively short man with a boyishly charming face, which, alternately smiling and yearning, carries us through the movie. Dominique (in French, "dominer" means "dominate") is blonde, taller than Karol, and says she no longer loves him, although, in a strange conversation with him about "understanding," she says, "You don't understand that I want you, that I need you . . ." He implores her to come with him to Poland, but she refuses.

The rest of the movie may be "understood" as his attempt to get her to come . . . to Poland. I think this, rather than revenge, is his real motive. In the entire movie, the word "revenge" is used only once, and that is on the lips of Dominique in that conversation about "understanding," where we all understand that he is not interested in revenge. Instead, he tells a stranger that he still loves Dominique.

When Karol returns to Warsaw, Poland (Kieslowski's birthplace), his first view is of a city dump. "Home at last!" he says. When he later has to acquire two items on the black market, he learns that his home has become a place where "These days, you can buy anything." The blessings of capitalism! It is also a place where he continues to miss Dominique. One night, in his bedroom, he approaches a white, plaster bust of a woman as he listens to a casette tape conjugating French verbs, the last verb being "to please," and the last conjugation being "would that I had pleased."

What makes "White" such a delight to watch is not just the cleverly dark humor or the plot twists or the relational turmoil or the numerous interesting characters or even the lovely face of Julie Delpy. (Zbigniew Zamachowski's face is every bit as fascinating to watch.) It is all of these plus the number of sly details, both visual and verbal, that Kieslowski slips into his film that makes it rewarding to view -- and view again. The details make viewing this movie more than a casual stroll in the park. They make viewing it an outing for "naturalists" on the hunt for any significant sight or sound.

The movie, however, is not just fun and games, though those are present. Nor, I think, is it really about "getting even," though that would be a perverse kind of equality. It is, essentially, a love story. And that is why, at the end, when Karol cried, so did I.

PS Once again, if you see all of the flms in the "Colors" trilogy, you will note some recurring items. Each film features a courthouse, a street-side recycling bin, and a fictitious composer named Budenmayer. Why? This is Kieslowski-land.

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The white is not only a color; it an anima state!

Kieslowski was the superb artifice of this curious Trilogy; White, Blue and Red deals with a delicate, mature and painful subject. The impossibility of a simple man to satisfy his couple will reach bindings of unsuspected turns; an unexpected journey from Paris to Warsaw, will become of him an energy outburst, the expected redemption has to be done in the middle of the corrupt battlefield.

The narrative style of Kielowski demands of you all the possible attention. His films possess conceptual density ornamented with visible visual metaphors; the tragedy and collapse of his beloved Poland appears beneath the absorbing script with unadorned realism. I would like to you recommend to watch previously his Decalogue. This fact will allow you to appreciate with major intensity the rat of this unforgettable genius. His sensible vanishing left a very remarkable void, which still remains, pitifully without successor.

The rest runs for you. There are many rich details to comment and the space is extremely brief to face this task.

Go for this treasure.

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Amusing, Clever, A Bit Sad

I much prefer irony to tragedy, and after Blue I was not sure what to look forward to with White. I wound up liking White a lot. Movies about "the human condition" are, for me, almost invariably obvious. While this movie does quite a bit of exploring about how a man reacts to love and the withdrawing of love, impotence and the power of performance, revenge and a circling back to love, I thought it was handled with such off-hand, dead-pan humor as to be a very sweet film. In a way, it struck me as an amuse-bouche, one of those unexpected treats that a first-rate chef will surprise a good customer with at the start of a meal or sometimes in between courses. The movie has that quality of freshness and unexpectedness.

Zbigniew Zamachowski does a masterful job as Karol, a sad sack if there ever was one, who gradually shows determination as well as obsession. I suppose one must just accept obsession as an unexplainable plot device in a movie, but Dominique got off to a very unsympathetic start. She'd wilt most men. Karol's obsession with her seemed a bit unreal. I found Karol developing into a resourceful, intelligent guy whom I began to admire. Dominique, though, didn't seem to change much. After all she put Karol through -- unnecessarily cruel most of the time -- I couldn't empathize much with Karol, but simply accepted things as the reason why I was enjoying the movie. I couldn't help thinking that if Karol had just had a few Viagra handy, none of his troubles would have begun. But then I thought about Dominique's essential characteristics, and I think that Karol would be better off with somebody new. I don't see a future for them.

One of the things I liked a lot about this movie is that it kept me guessing. Was it going to be a romantic comedy, or a black comedy or some kind of excruciatingly dull exploration of sexual inadequacy? Was Karol really just a sad loser when he seemed sort of resourceful in a sad, funny way? What was he trying to do with his property purchase? Where did Dominque fit in or was this just a cameo with Delpy? Was something sad going to happen after I'd figured out it seemed to be a combination black/romantic comedy? I like a movie that I can't quite see the end to.

People have said that this movie is the equality part of the trio. I saw this movie as a clever, bittersweet struggle for dominance, not equality, and laced with a little revenge. I thought it was a sweet, bittersweet, clever movie.

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Equality in terms of knowledge in one's own country

Equality-the state or instance of being equal; especially, the state of enjoying equal rights, as political, economic, and social.

"What about equality?" demands Polish émigré and hairdresser Karol Karol to the judge during his divorce hearings. Was the judge not hearing his case just because he couldn't speak French? Karol's French wife, the lovely Dominique, has filed divorce charges against him because he can't perform in bed. This leaves Karol in a pinch, as Dominique has tossed him and his suitcase out into the street, having been awarded the house and bank account. Furthermore, it does fit the theme of equality in the second of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Tricoleurs trilogy, Blanc (French), or Bialy (Polish). Dominique has the advantage of knowing French and French law. Karol doesn't. The only thing is for him to return back to Poland, which he does, in a suitcase!

Fortunately, he has his brother Jurek, running his hairdressing salon, and Mikolaj (pron. Mikolai), a fellow Pole who has promised him a job, to kill someone who wants to take his own life but can't, for which he'll pay handsomely. Yet Karol tells his target that we all want less pain in our lives and the technique he uses to dissuade his target is ingenious. I mean, can one see Karol, who's a nice, maybe too nice a guy, as a killer?

The colour symbolism of white works here as did blue for the first film in the trilogy. Karol and Mikolaj run around in the snow as if they were kids. From that point on, the white symbolizes a clean slate, where Karol's comeback begins. Much of the scenery in Poland is against an overcast gray-white sky, but that provides the backdrop for his rejuvenation. He's back home, where he becomes knowledgeable about the new post-Communist Poland and other things he learns to make it as a businessman. And it is there that he decides to get back at his ex-wife. Personally, I thought he was too lenient with her.

Zbigniew Zamachowski shines as Karol, as does Janusz Gajos as the gloomy Mikolaj. Julie Delpy is pretty but unsympathetic as Dominique, which was the point of the movie. The vicious way she humiliates Karol that drives him back to Poland, most men would consider unforgivable. Yet she's like a bookend, figuring in the beginning and final parts of White. Oh, and Juliette Binoche, star of Blue, has a brief wordless cameo in the beginning, where she can be seen at the rear of the court chambers talking to the guards while Karol's hearing is in progress.

To the extent that being at home in one's country and knowing the laws and people there makes people equal to one another, but only within the confines of their borders, which is a stark contrast to Blue, where one of the subplots involved a concerto for European unification.

A good film to be sure, with a protagonist to root for, but Libertie, Revanche, Fraternite?

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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