Red (Three Colors Trilogy)

Rating:
Summary: "I feel something important is happening around me."
Review: "Red," the final entry in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy, raises the stakes in terms of storytelling by adding a metaphysical twist to the proceedings. So profound is this twist that it immediately makes you regard the previous two entries in a different light as it turns out there is tighter connection to the three films than previously thought. On its own, "Red" is an enjoyable viewing experience, but when regarded as part of a larger tapestry, it becomes a genuinely intriguing work of creative art.

A fashion model named Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidentally hits a dog while driving one night. She takes it to its owner, a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who has a bad habit of eavesdropping on the conversations of others. Even though Valentine and the judge come from different worlds, the two of them start to develop a bond between them. One day the judge tells Valentine of a relationship he was in earlier in his life that ended on a painful note. In a strange twist of fate, the lives of two young lovers named Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) and Karin (Frederique Feder) start to unfold in an eerily-similar fashion to that of the judge and his lover thirty years ago. Valentine herself then becomes part of destiny's game when she boards a passenger barge.

There's a fascinating connection between the three "Three Colors" films in the character of an elderly lady who struggles to put an empty bottle into a recycling bin. While the character appears to be nothing significant in "Blue" (1993) and "White" (1994), Valentine's interaction with her in "Red" redefines the events of the earlier films. In this respect, it is very important to watch the three films in the proper sequence in order to appreciate just how much of a role fate plays in the lives of the trilogy characters. In the acting department, "Red" is blessed with outstanding performances with Jacob being especially radiant in her part. Even though the character she plays is essentially a passive participant in destiny's web, Valentine never loses her place as the emotional and dramatic core of the film thanks to the talented Jacob. She ably brings Kieslowski's trilogy to a thought-provoking and unique conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: "I feel something important is happening around me."
Review: "Red," the final entry in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy, raises the stakes in terms of storytelling by adding a metaphysical twist to the proceedings. So profound is this twist that it immediately makes you regard the previous two entries in a different light as it turns out there is tighter connection to the three films than previously thought. On its own, "Red" is an enjoyable viewing experience, but when regarded as part of a larger tapestry, it becomes a genuinely intriguing work of creative art.

A fashion model named Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidentally hits a dog while driving one night. She takes it to its owner, a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who has a bad habit of eavesdropping on the conversations of others. Even though Valentine and the judge come from different worlds, the two of them start to develop a bond between them. One day the judge tells Valentine of a relationship he was in earlier in his life that ended on a painful note. In a strange twist of fate, the lives of two young lovers named Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) and Karin (Frederique Feder) start to unfold in an eerily-similar fashion to that of the judge and his lover thirty years ago. Valentine herself then becomes part of destiny's game when she boards a passenger barge.

There's a fascinating connection between the three "Three Colors" films in the character of an elderly lady who struggles to put an empty bottle into a recycling bin. While the character appears to be nothing significant in "Blue" (1993) and "White" (1994), Valentine's interaction with her in "Red" redefines the events of the earlier films. In this respect, it is very important to watch the three films in the proper sequence in order to appreciate just how much of a role fate plays in the lives of the trilogy characters. In the acting department, "Red" is blessed with outstanding performances with Jacob being especially radiant in her part. Even though the character she plays is essentially a passive participant in destiny's web, Valentine never loses her place as the emotional and dramatic core of the film thanks to the talented Jacob. She ably brings Kieslowski's trilogy to a thought-provoking and unique conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: A very beautiful movie
Review: "RED" is the 3rd installment of the 'Three colors' triology (BLUE, WHITE, RED); but this movie is good enough to stand alone on its own merit.

"RED" is a movie full of parellel and coincidental threads that run in the lives of the two main characters - a beautiful young model and an old cynical judge. Fate brings them together and they find that they share some uncanny similarities in their lives; where the past repeats itself in the present and it holds the keys to the future. The cinematography, the story and the music of "RED" complement each other perfectly, just like the two main characters.

This is one movie that I regret not seeing in the theaters and I would recommend this movie to anyone who has an interest in films outside of the typical Hollywood "mindblasters".

Lastly, Krzystof Kieslowski died shortly after this film was made, but he left us a masterpiece which showed that he was a gifted director at his prime.

RC 1999-07-10

Rating:
Summary: You can actually feel your heart lifting as you watch it.
Review: 'Red' is the most magical of the 'Three Colours' trilogy, one in which metamorphosis or spiritual transformation is central. 'Blue' and 'White' could never be confused with social realism, but both were true to the inner, poetic reality of their protagonists. This isn't the case with 'Red' - none of its four main characters can be said to dominate the film: although there is definitely a controlling consciousness, it's not clear whose it is. As always with Kieslowski, the film's first sequence sets out its strategies in miniature. On an unexceptial Genevan (NOT Parisian!) street, the camera picks out one character and his dog, abandons them to peer into the bedroom of its heroine, Valentine, a student and model with a jealous boyfriend we hear but never see, who is working in England. Despite the technical virtuosity of this one-shot sequence, this opening could be considered realistic: we are introduced to characters and their environment. But there are two details that work against this. The heroine lives above a cafe called Chez Joseph, which also happens to be the name of the film's anti-hero, the misanthropic ex-judge Kern, who eavesdrops on his neighbour's telephone conversations by radio. This is only the first of the film's many patterned coincidences which take us out of psychological realism into a different kind of storytelling (the cafe sign is in red which will similarly, anti-realistically, be splashed throughout the film).

The second detail is that the heroine is not introduced by her self, in person, but by her voice on the answering machine. Immediately we have a split within selves, between the present and the absent, that proliferates in this film of doubles, shadows and correspondances. Not only do characters mirror others, but individual characters see their identities diffused through different media (telephones, photographs, newspapers, TV, radio etc.), means of mechanical reproduction which assume a fetishstic or spiritual power. Despite its apparent realism, then, 'Red' is a work of magic or fantasy. When Valentine first enters Kern's dark, dank bungalow (a modern Plato's cave), having run over his dog, the camera takes on the sinister point-of-view familiar from slasher films, while the bleeping radio sounds announcing the judge seem like the laboratory appurtenances of a mad professor. In the second, more important meeting, the fact that Valentine is crossing thresholds into a magic realm is doubly signalled. The gate and dooorway is guarded by the mythical dog who brought the pair toghter, by way of a church. Before she enters, a wind suddenly shivers the leaves of a framing tree; later, at the moment we are supposed to hate him for his moral nihilism, Kern summons a blinding epiphany of sunlight. He may be a monster, but in his 'eavesdropping' on others, his making connections between disparate, disorganised lives and his creating consoling fictions in the face of tragedy, Kern is a substitute for both director and viewer. In the figure of the young judge, who seems to exactly replay the older man's life (both of whom are never seen in the same scene), we have that haunting Proustian conflation of past, present and future, the outer world and inner life, that Kieslowski strove for, but didn't quite catch, in 'Blue'.

'Red' is the most sympathetic of all the films in the 'Three Colours' trilogy. Perhaps this is because red is a warmer colour than blue or white. Or because Preisner's score is lusher, almost celebratory, close to Maurice Jarre. Maybe it's because Irene Jacob is a much more open, generous actress than her predecessors - like her name and colour, Valentine seems to irradiate love. Sometimes her innocence is too ideal to be true, and we find ourselves much more drawn to the fascinatingly ambiguous, charismatic, persuasive figure of the judge. Their stagy dialogues could have had the banal quality of Shavian dialectic if it wasn't for the metatextual patterns that cast shadows around the coherence of their words, shadows that make the film at once soul-soaring and unforgivingly bleak - is salvation of the few really worth the deaths of thousands?

Rating:
Summary: VERY WORTH BUYING - YOU'LL ENJOY IT REPEATEDLY!
Review: ...CARRIES ONE RIGHT INTO THE BEAUTIFULLY FILMED WORLDS OF HALF A DOZEN ACCIDENTALLY? OVERLAPPING, ALMOST INTERACTING CHARACTERS, FASCINATES THROUGHOUT EVEN ON THE FOURTH AND FIFTH VIEWINGS, AND CLOSES WITH A WONDERFUL TWIST. THE MORE WE THINK WE KNOW, THE LESS WE DO?! MAKES ONE WISH KIESLOWSKI WOULD EXPAND THIS TRICOLOR TRILOGY INTO A FULL SPECTRUM SERIES. PERFECT FOR A RAINY NIGHT BY THE FIRE, OR THOSE WHO WANT THAT MOOD!

Rating:
Summary: .
Review: A thoughtful movie which has its moments, but I found myself a bit bored at points. This is not due to a bias againt foreign films or slow pacing, as I like foreign films *and* slow pacing, but rather an inability to empathize with the characters or engage myself with what was happening to them. Not bad, but not great either.

Rating:
Summary: A fitting nihilistic end
Review: A very dissapointing finale to the trilogy, Rouge stars another beautiful woman (Irene Jacob), this time as a model named Valentine. Thru the circumstance of hitting a dog and trying to find its owner, she comes to meet a retired judge who keeps track of his neighbours' phone calls with surveillance equipment.

My dissapointment with Red is that it has a potentially ground-breaking movie in this idea. In a pivotal scene, the judge responds to Valentine's confrontation over the surveillance by pointing out to her that helping the people she hears on his equipment may not be as simple as she thinks, and that sometimes one would do better to listen.

The movie could have taken this and make Valentine realize it more fully. Instead, it vindicates Valentine in her unformed and irrational disgust, tells us that judgment and even reality are arrogant illusions, and in its conclusion paints the judge as a traumatized, fragile soul in need of repentance. A fitting nihilistic end for a director who wanted to get to work destroying human values. While he does so intelligently, adroitly and subtly in Blue and White, here his enterprise fails.

Rating:
Summary: KIESLOWSKI AT HIS VERY BEST....Très Charmante
Review: As with the other entries in the TRICOLORES trilogy, Kieslowski has given us another slice of his soul. One could easily leave off saying "I have seen the enemy, and he is me", for Kieslowski always gives us humanity at its most diverse. The common thread through all 3 films is mankind's devices for handling pain and anguish, and he allows us to make our own interpretations. Just as with BLEU, with Juliette Binoche, and BLANC, with Julie Delpy, Kieslowski has offered up another masterpeice in ROUGE with the truly beautiful and talented Irene Jacob. Of the three, RED is my personal favorite, on the weight of Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a character of central importance to the past and to Jacob's future; however, I strongly recommend all three, and in the Correct French order of Blue, White and Red.

Rating:
Summary: Profound
Review: Aside from being visually stunning, "Red" is one of the most complicated, profound films I think I've ever seen. Valentine (Irene Jacob) is a model who meets a retired judge (Jean Louis Trintignant) after running over his German sheperd. From there, they develop a connection, and the "red" of the title becomes symbolically important--it represents fraternity, love. Through a series of seemingly random events--or is it fate?--events and characters in the movie intertwine. It's hard to adequately explain the trajectory of the movie. It's a meditation on life, love, connection, and how chance, for better or worse, is a powerful force in our lives.

Rating:
Summary: A portrait in scarlet
Review: Despite being the finale of the critically acclaimed "Colors" trilogy, "Red" ("Rouge") need not be seen after the similarly beloved "Blue" ("Bleu") and "White" ("Blanc"). As warm and rich as the shades of red scattered through it, this film is one of the most compelling non-American releases in years.

On her way home from a modelling session, Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidently runs over and injures a pregnant dog. The owner is Joseph Kern, (Jean-Louis Trintignant) an embittered, cynical ex-judge whose years of condemnation and acquittal have left him spiritually adrift. He now spends his time alone in his house, wiretapping the phones of his neighbors and predicting what will happen in their lives.

After Valentine expresses disgust at Joseph's activities, he turns himself in to the authorities. Their friendship grows into a bond of differing values and unhappy histories. As Valentine prepares to leave for England, the judge reveals the tragic circumstances of his early life -- a tragedy mirrored by some of the people he has been spying on.

Where "Blue" was cool and sensual and "White" was sharp and sexy, "Red" has a sweetness and richness to its story. Valentine's name suggests love, and that love -- a platonic friendship that teeters on romantic love -- brings Joseph back from his unhealthy cynicism. Her kindness and unhappiness appeal to him, reassuring him that people are not intrinsically bad. His spiritual transformation is subtle, but convincing; it's mirrored by the sun shining down on him near the film's end.

Few filmmakers could pull off the symbolism that springs up in any of the "Colors" movies. In this one, red springs up everywhere -- walls, glasses, jeeps, lipstick, clothing, phones, bowling balls, little lights lining a model runway. The most obvious example is the enormous red picture of Valentine that's put up over the city.

The writing is simple but profound, with immense weight on simple statements like "Why don't you do anything?" or "You deserve to die!" Perhaps the only questionable part of the movie is the way it draws together characters from "White" and "Blue." It's either strained or genius -- hard to tell which.

Jacob does an excellent job with the difficult character of Valentine. She's almost too nice and innocent to be real, the incarnation of all that is good, but Jacob makes her come to life; without a word, she can convey a wealth of emotion with her face. Trintignant has a harder job: he has to bring across the weary, existentialist judge without making him unsympathetic. And he does so astoundingly.

In the French flag, red stands for fraternity. Not necessarily in the sense of brothers or college pals, but rather a love for one's fellow man. And that sense of fraternity is what drives "Red."