Rating: 
Summary: Who needs action when you can watch... and live
Review: Kieslowski does it again! This movie transports you to the heart of what it means to be french. The dialogue is mesmerizing, the scenery is stunning, and the mood?... in one word... captivating.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful master piece!
Review: Like sipping a cup of hot tea in a cool autumn evening, Red seems to communicate beyond words and movements. The film is filled with soulful characters in parallel with this world, cognizant of their situation yet uncertain of their fate. So much that it hurts, in a sweet way, to watch. I truely recommend this film to everyone, especially those who are not yet tired of humanity.
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Summary: Fraternite--la fraicheur de vie
Review: Look up the word brotherhood or fraternity in the dictionary and one will find its gender bias, as in "the quality of being brotherly" or "a group of persons associated by or as by ties of brotherhood." That being the case, when the slogan of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite was taken up as the motto of the French Revolution, that last word seemed to have excluded women. In the final film of Kryszstof Kieslowski's Tricoleurs trilogy, Rouge, the person who plays the voice of human compassion happens to be fashion model Valentine Dussaut. A fitting first name, Valentine as in love, but a universal caring love for one's fellow human as opposed to a single person.
Her life changes one night when she accidentally hits a German Shepherd named Rita. Upon tracing the dog to its owner, she discovers a retired judge whose indifference to the animal's plight disgusts her. She cares for the dog but it runs away back home. There, she finds out the judge has a radio set to a frequency where he can eavesdrop on the telephone conversations of his neighbours. His justification is that with his snooping, there is an accurate way to judge. He gives the example of a man he acquitted who was actually guilty.
But Valentine counters him by saying that people aren't bad, but that sometimes they are weak. This later leads to the realization that a judge makes his decision based on facts and evidence and not by standing in the other person's shoes. Being empathic thus forges the connection of brotherhood between one person and another. The judge deduces Valentine's hatred of a drug dealer with her heroin-addicted brother, while she later figures out why the judge has become someone who doesn't care for anyone, nor been in love with anyone. By being empathic, one discovers the other person's weakness, and by eliminating that weakness, makes the other person better.
Another subplot involves a target of the judge's eavesdropping. It involves the relationship between a woman who runs a telephone meteorological service and a student preparing to enter the bar. The circumstances of this student eerily parallels that of the judge's early life.
Red as a colour appears throughout, mostly as a contrast colour in the streets of Paris. In terms of fraternity, or of being connected with one's fellow human being, there's Valentine, whose face is reddened from her ballet workout with her classmates. The law student's car is red. However, the biggest impact of red in the film is the enormous poster of Valentine's profile, with a bright red background. The caption on the left reads "la fraicheur de vie," or "the freshness of life."
One interesting motif I noticed was the bent old lady struggling to shove the bottle in the tall bin. She appeared in both Bleu and Blanc, and did so but with immense difficulty. Small wonder that Valentine, who's fraternity, is the only one who actually helps the old woman, and not Julie (Bleu-Liberte) nor Karol (Blanc-Egalite).
Both leads, Irene Jacob (Valentine) and veteran actor Jean Louis Trignitant (the judge) carry the film. The latter's transformation of someone whose soul is rescued by Valentine is simply incredible. Samuel LeBihan, who's the photographer shooting Valentine, would later have larger roles as the male lead in two Audrey Tautou movies, The Venus Beauty Institute and He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.
The final scene reunites the protagonists from Bleu and Blanc, the two movies, to encapsulate the concepts of Liberte and Egalite of those films, showing them to be inseparable from Fraternite. The best of the three movies.
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Summary: A masterpiece of unconventional storytelling ...
Review: Obviously this can never entertain your average Hollywood film goer, but for those who have aquired the taste for skillful film making in any genre will find 'Red' irresistably intriguing. The director uses color, composition and symbolism to achieve a visually accomplished film asking philisophic questions resulting in love and life affirming answers. Perhaps the best element of 'Red' is the subtle magic of recurrant and synchronistic events which result in healing broken hearts and fostering new passions. Irene Jacob is wistful and enchanting. Personally, I feel this film is a cinematic masterwork ranking up amongst 'M', 'Casablanca', 'Citizen Kane', and 'Evil Dead II'. One of the best.
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Summary: History repeats it's self..only this time ..She exists.
Review: one of my all-time best movies ..a film that's worthy to watch over and over for it's richness in story , direction , acting and a wonderfull Sound track by Zbigniew Preisner that would certainly impact You..About the movie ,that paranormal atmosphere within the relationships of the characters in that movie gives it such an enigmatic feel with a surprising end ...for you'll figure out some how that it's a story about fate and history that almost repeats it's self..( a complex linking ) but this time..that gentle pretty young woman exists to change that history repeating it's self with her fate..................
Rating:
Summary: History repeats it's self..only this time ..She exists.
Review: one of my all-time best movies ..a film that's worthy to watch over and over for it's richness in story , direction , acting and a wonderfull Sound track by Zbigniew Preisner that would certainly impact You..About the movie ,that paranormal atmosphere within the relationships of the characters in that movie gives it such an enigmatic feel with a surprising end ...for you'll figure out some how that it's a story about fate and history that almost repeats it's self..( a complex linking ) but this time..that gentle pretty young woman exists to change that history repeating it's self with her fate..................
Rating:
Summary: Fantastique!
Review: Originally, this was the third of the trilogy that I viewed, and it totally blew me away. After a long search to find this for sale on video (okay, I basically gave up), I found it and had the pleasure of being blown away by it a second time. This is one of those movies that you don't think of immediately when someone asks for a recommendation, only to pop it in the VCR and go "Oh my God!". Even as I write this, my memories of the movie are secondary to my memories of how amazed I was by it. Not many movies can do that.
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Summary: Fantastique! Of all the movies to be unavailable...
Review: Originally, this was the third of the trilogy that I viewed, and it totally blew the first two away. After a long search to find this for sale on video (okay, I basically gave up), I found it and had the pleasure of being blown away by it a second time. This is one of those movies that you don't think of immediately when someone asks for a recommendation. Even as I write this, my memories of the movie are secondary to my memories of how amazed I was by it. It's like I'm watching it for the first time every time. Not many movies can do that.
Rating: 
Summary: Random personal encounters
Review: RED ends the film trilogy that began with BLUE and WHITE. By the end of RED, it's apparent that one had better see the other two first in order to get the point of them all.Valentine (Irene Jacob) is a fashion and photography model living in Geneva. One night while driving, her car hits a dog, which she subsequently takes to the vet to be patched up. From the address on the animal's collar, she tracks down the pet's owner, a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who has no interest in keeping the dog. As a matter of fact, the man has little interest in life whatsoever except to eavesdrop on the wireless phone conversations of his neighbors. Slowly, however, the chance encounter between Valentine and The Judge grows into a platonic friendship. The potential for other random encounters swirls around Valentine. Some may happen; most will likely not. But this one occurred, and both participants are the better for it. RED must be the last film of the trilogy seen. At it's conclusion, a most improbable coincidence brings together the major characters of all three. The lesson of BLUE, WHITE and RED in the aggregate appears to be that life is a series of coincidences, and the potential for personal growth from any connection between one or more individuals is a mine of great richness if one cares to work it. Humans are reputed to be a social species. However, the trilogy is perhaps best appreciated by a "people person", who relishes the interaction of daily encounters whether random or not. I'm not that sort (much to my wife's perpetual disgust), so my regard for the series is muted. I was prepared to give RED three stars until the conclusion, after which I boosted it to four. I recognize the ability of the film, and the trilogy, to stimulate opinionated discussion, which, as long as it doesn't degenerate into name-calling and fisticuffs, is a swell thing, especially over pizza and beer. RED, WHITE and BLUE also makes the point that there's commonality in the experiences of varied individuals. In each film, the major character observes an old person struggling to insert an empty bottle into the elevated aperture of a large, curbside container for recyclables. Only in RED does the protagonist (Valentine) give aid. Whether there's more to this symbolism or not could be the starting point of another discussion. It only indicated to me that Valentine was the more generous and less self-absorbed of the three. I liked RED and its predecessors, but am not such a profound thinker as to regard them as Great Cinematic Contributions.
Rating:
Summary: Life's circular procession
Review: Red is a film about life as an interwoven tapestry of beating hearts just missing each other at every turn. It thrives in possibility, and it is beautiful.
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