TROIS COULEURS: BLANC Movie Review

Three Colors: White White

The centerpiece of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs trilogy acts as a kind of bitter comic relief. It's the story of Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski), a bewildered, impotent, sad-sack Polish hairdresser who's not only divorced by his sexually frustrated wife Dominique (Julie Delpy), but is cleaned out by her financially as well. Returning to his family in Poland, Karol doggedly washes, curls, and perms his way back to wealth, and he discovers a new economy where people make money by killing other people. lt gives him an idea for winning back his ex and for having the last laugh as well. Like her character, Dominique's name does not suggest passivity, nor does the name Karol Karol fail to bring to mind Nabokov's enslaved Humbert Humbert. Of course, Blanc may be taken as a comic lark and a tart, light diversion between the trilogy's more serious acts, but when one considers that in the French flag the color white stands for equality, it becomes more inviting to look beneath the surface for clues about what the balance of power really means whenever sex, money, men, and women are involved. Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa) was a co-screenwriter. Best Director Prize, Berlin Film Festival.

NEXT STOP … Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Trois Couleurs: Rouge, A Friend of the Deceased

1994 (R) 92m/C FR SI PL Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Janusz Gajos, Jerzy Stuhr, Aleksander Bardini, Grzegorz Warchol, Cezary Harasimowicz, Jerzy Nowak, Jerzy Trela, Cezary Pazura, Michel Lisowski, Philippe Morier-Genoud; Cameos: Juliette Binoche, Florence Pernel; D: Krzysztof Kieslowski; W: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz; C: Edward Klosinski; M: Zbigniew Preisner. Berlin International Film Festival ‘94: Best Director (Kieslowski). VHS MAX