Judge Red

Trois Couleurs: Rouge

1994 Poland/France/Switzerland

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Artificial Eye DVD Region 2

Trilogy spoilers ensue!

Red, the third part of Kieslowski’s colour trilogy, is another masterpiece from a highly skilled director at the height of his creative powers.

Again, unlike most of the work I have seen by this director, the pacing in this part is much less leisurely and the movie is generally less voyeuristic than Blue, the first part of the trilogy. Although it’s certainly not as pacey as White. And as you can imagine from the first two... there is an abundance of red surfaces and lighting within the movie. In fact, the colours in this movie, to my mind, seem to be much richly and more densely saturated than in the first two movies... and I’m not just talking about the reds here... it’s everything. This really does come close in certain shots to a Mario Bava or Dario Argento movie - you may have noticed if you read this blog regularly the these two are my great “lighters of movies” who I use in comparison with everyone else... if you want to see colours on film then these are your "go to" guys.

Red tells the story of model Valentine who is worried about her brother because he is suffering with mental health issues. While driving her car she accidentally runs over an escaped dog. The dog isn’t dead but it’s in a bad way and she drives and carries it to it’s owner through the tag on the collar and finds herself talking to a miserable and depressed retired judge who has no interest in the state of the dog and, in fact, seems to have a complete lack of interest in life in general (seriously, this guy is almost as miserable as me... and that’s saying something).

Valentine takes the dog to a vet and it quickly recovers but soon escapes and leads her back to the retired judge, played by legendary actor Jean-Louis Trintignant (Silence himself from The Great Silence). After learning his hobby is to electronically eavesdrop on his neighbours phone calls, her initial disgust leads to a blossoming relationship and eventual friendship with him as she hears the tragedy’s of his life.

There are minor subplots with various neighbours but that’s pretty much the set-up in a crimson lit nutshell. All the actors in this film are superb, the music is superb (and this film became a bit famous for some of the music presented in a bolero form at the time although, on rewatching the film 16 years after I first saw it, I can’t think why as it’s doesn’t seem as prominent as I remember), the cinematography phenomenal... and yet it still manages to catch the subtleties of an intimate, non-sexual relationship between the two main characters. That’s one thing which doesn’t change with Kieslowski from film to film - the implications of a scene and the perceived intent of his characters is subtly revealed but never really highlighted within a shot... an intelligent movie-maker pitching at a half intelligent audience... or at least not dumbing everything down. And it’s this kind of strategy that I think keeps you hooked on a Kieslowski movie the first time around... you want to see where he’s going to lead you because it’s almost impossible to know.

There are some great moments in this film... I laughed out loud when Valentina went to buy a Van den Budenmayer CD only to have found it sold out... one of director Kieslowski and composer Preisner’s little references to a fictional composer they created for use in Kieslowski’s films (you’ll find this guy turns up in some way in a lot of them). Also there’s a brilliant overlap from the first two films with the character of the old lady slowly trying to recycle her bottles again... the difference being that in this one Valentine actually rushes to her aid, unlike the main protagonists of the first two movies.

The film has a neat ending too. Early in the film Valentina has been at a photoshoot where her hair is wet and dishevelled and she is looking perplexed against a large red background for a big series of billboard banner adverts (the image itself became the main poster campaign for this film). At the end of the movie she takes a ferry to her brother but there is a storm and a terrible tragedy as the ferry sinks. As the judge watches a television fearing the worst for his new friend, it is revealed in a newsflash that there are 7 survivors. Two of these are Juliette Binoche and Benoît Régent... their characters have obviously gone off and ended up together after the end of Blue. Two more are Julie Delpy and Zbigniew Zamachowski who played the divorced husband and wife in the second film... this is an interesting punchline to White since the newsreader identifies their characters which means they’ll both be in a lot of trouble with the law subsequent to the events in this film... Julie Delpy has presumably been sprung from jail and Zbigniew Zamachowski is obviously not wanting to publicize that he has faked his own death.

And then you have Irene Jacob’s Valentine... her hair is wet, she looks bewildered and in shock, and there is a red background behind her... an exact replica of the poster campaign she shot earlier in the film.

Trois Couleurs: Rouge is a satisfying ending to the trilogy and as usual I can’t recommend Kieslowski enough. If you’re a fan of cinema then you can’t afford to miss these movies, which only get richer with the passing of time.

Do The White Thing

Trois Couleurs: Blanc

1994 Poland/France/Switzerland

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Artificial Eye DVD Region 2

White is the most conventional of Kieslowski’s classic trilogy... certainly in terms of narrative structure it’s the most up front and least ambiguous of his movies. Basically it’s a romantic movie which has equal parts of buddy comedy movie mixed up with a little revenge.

Visually, too, although still very interesting and wonderful to behold, there seems to be just generally less going on in this movie. Kieslowski, for the most part, seems to have abandoned his method of concentrating on just the little details like he did in the first part of this trilogy, and instead focusses on the character arc of the main protagonist in a more visually direct mode as he goes from being a man in love, bitterly divorced and also outlawed by his wife, to a popular barber and then, due to some shenanigans with land ownership, to being a wealthy businessman.

This also tells the story of the recovery of his sexual potency... his wife's reasons for divorcing him are on the grounds of being unsatisfied in bed... an unconsummated marriage is not what she wants from him. Later, as he is about to have revenge on his wife by clever manipulation and after faking his own death, the two of them make love and it is quite clear that he has regained the confidence to fulfil what she sees as his carnal duties to her.

There is obviously a fair amount of white in the shots... as you would expect from Kieslowski after the first part... but this is mostly not achieved through filters but through quite stark lighting in some shots... so white neon lights reflect white off of shiny surfaces, for instance. And some of the movie is set in Poland in the snowy landscape... so he doesn’t need to do too much work there ;-)

The music, again by Preisner, is quite nice but nowhere near comes through as potent as his score for Blue... I guess it’s not meant to. This is, after all, the Kieslowski spin on a light, fluffy comedy.

Like the Decalog before it, he film gently rubs against the situations and characters from the other two parts, although I can’t remember the overlaps from Red and so am waiting to watch that one again... I’ll leave about a week before I rewatch it. Certainly there’s a shot of Juliette Binoche in long shot which is a reverse shot of one we see from her point of view (more or less) in Blue. And there’s a sequence with a throwaway character of an old lady trying to recycle a bottle which viewers will get a sudden realisation from if they’ve seen the first part.

The only real ambiguity in the film is the final couple of shots... something is about to happen between the main protagonist and his wife... you just don’t know what... although if memory serves these characters, along with the characters from the first part, will get a resolution of sorts at the end of Red.

The film, for me, is the least interesting of the Kieslowski films I’ve seen and, therefore, it’s my least favourite of his popular trilogy... but you know what? If it’s a minor work by Kieslowski then that’s still pretty much a major piece of art compared to most other director’s works. Still essential viewing... but make sure you see all three in order.

Bleu Movie

Trois Couleurs: Bleu 1993

Poland/France/Switzerland

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Artificial Eye DVD Region 2

I remember going to see this at a late night performance at, what was then, the Lumiere cinema in London back when this movie was first released. A couple of mates and I had driven into London late one night to specifically see this movie and we were all really tired... but as soon as the movie started we were completely hooked on Krzysztof Kieslowski’s amazing movie. I’d persuaded my friends to drive into town to watch this on the strength of a TV screening of Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Love and his Decalog (which includes a shorter, alternate version of that film but with a different ending).

Blue didn't disappoint any of us... it was everything we were looking for in a movie right then... if we even knew what we were looking for. Rewatching it for the first time in a very long time, I was struck by how the director’s movies are both so distant and yet so utterly involving in their complex make up. Something about his movies gives you a very voyeuristic feeling... which is kinda strange considering that Kieslowski’s style of filming is quite artificial and the absolute antithesis of something like the “more than questionable” “style” of Dogme filmmaking which became slightly fashionable for a while (and don’t start me off about the inherent contradictions in the Dogme manifesto which make it impossible to even begin to shoot a movie in that style without ignoring the ground rules... I get kinda passionate and angry about it).

Kieslowski’s Blue uses a very strong colour palette (as some of his films do), and you will get primary colours juxtaposed against each other, much like in the movies of Mario Bava or Dario Argento, although they are not as deeply saturated as the colours those directors play with... but Kieslowski shows us that these colours are certainly strong enough to bounce off each other and create their own colour space without having to accent them so strongly. And of course... there’s a lot of blue filtering in this movie. It’s a visually striking film.

Blue tells the story of Julie, deftly played by Juliette Binoche, who is in a car crash at the start of the movie to which she loses both her young daughter and her famous composer husband. When she alone survives and finds that she is unable to take her own life, she runs away from it all and gets rid of as much of her previous life as she can and just tries to stay out of people’s way. Not so easy because a colleague of here husband, Olivier, is in love with her and tracks her down and keeps trying to find ways to attract her attention. It's suggested as a possibility, early on in the narrative, that Julie might be the actual writer of her famous husbands compositions. This is neither confirmed or denied because Kieslowski seems to have a fondness for filling his films with ambiguity and an acute lack of closure... which is absolutely fine. You make up your own mind. Certainly, as she assists and pretty much takes over from Olivier in his task to finish her husbands last important composition, the circumstantial evidence is compelling that she might well have been the true author of her husbands works.

Kieslowski tends to focus on little details in his films... little moments of extreme beauty like the drip, drip of the fuel from the tail pipe of a car or a feather lightly blowing in the wind. And it’s really interesting to watch these artificially accented shots because they are also a window into the main action which puts you in a fly on the wall position quite often and give you that sense of voyeurism that is in few director’s works. The performances are all absolutely amazing... as they always are from the actors in his movies... and this attention to pulling perfect performances out of very talented people allows room for the artificial concentration of some of his shots to work and breathe without worrying that bad performances are going to heighten the lack of naturalism... these really are expertly crafted films.

Kieslowski and composer Zbigniew Preisner’s fictional composer Van den Budenmayer (their equivalent of Hal Hartley’s Ned Rifle and Ryful) also pops up in this one (as his music does quite significantly later on in The Double Life of Veronique). Preisner’s score in this is fantastic and swells up at unexpected times when the screen fades to black in the middle of a shot... only to fade back in after the music... like the director is “pulling a Godard” and wanting you to see that he’s making a point. I think what he’s doing is highlighting every time the lead character is posed with a choice or question that pulls her back closer to the land of the living. When she follows music with her fingers in various sequences of beautiful close up photography, a filter is used so all but the one note being played is in focus in the centre of the screen at any one time... a beautiful film to look at.

And then, of course, there’s the sugar cube shot. Once of the most memorable celluloid images and perhaps my favourite single shot of any movie. Julie dunks a sugar cube into a cup of coffee and in extreme close-up we watch the cube soak up the coffee over the space of five seconds. This looks cool on DVD but I can’t stress enough how much Kieslowski’s films need to be seen on the big screen. When you see a giant sugar cube soaking up coffee in your face at the cinema... it’s a moment of true beauty. I didn’t know this until earlier today but apparently Kieslowski went through all the sugar companies until he could find one which absorbed the coffee in exactly five seconds. No more... no less. Now that’s attention to detail!

Kieslowski’s Blue is the first part of a trilogy which continues in White and Red. His movies are some of the most beautiful pieces of motion picture art ever shot. If you’ve not seen this and you’re seriously into film then you may want to give his movies some of your time.

Three Colours: Blood Red

Let The Right One In 2008 Sweden

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Momentum DVD Region 2

Let The Right One In

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

By Johan Söderqvist Moviescoremedia MM508022

Glad I finally caught up to the DVD release of this movie. Been a while since I saw it at the cinema and at that time I hadn’t had the benefit of having read the source novel by John Alvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay. Actually I read the novel last summer and I have to say that I’m glad I went into the movie blind. The novel was okay and the movie adaptation is not unlike the best of movie adaptations considering there were whole characters and subplots left out of the film version.

I actually prefer the movie in many respects and I think the writer and director were very wise in choosing to leave out the amount they did because, although I’m sure a lot of the excised material could have easily been accommodated in a two hour feature... you wouldn’t have been able to ramble along at the same pace that this movie has and that would have been very much to it’s detriment.

There are also things that are ever so slightly alluded to in the movie which you won’t necessarily pick up on unless you know the characters from the book and I’m pretty sure that this has been done to raise the commercial profile of the film and lessen risk at the box office more than anything else. Like the fact that as the burgeoning love affair between the twelve year old Oskar and Eli, the vampire “girl” who has been twelve years old for a great many years now, grows throughout the running time... it is not made clear that Eli is in fact a permanently young, castrated “boy” vampire who chooses to pass himself off as a girl. When Eli in the movie twice alludes that she’s “not a girl”, the general interpretation of that... with myself and the other people who I know have seen this film, is to think... no you’re not a girl, you’re a vampire. The sexual identity of the vampire is never really called into question but once you’ve read the novel these little passing references take on a more significant meaning.

It’s all pretty meaningless anyway because the film is an absolute treat for the senses. The film starts with a shot of snow so it had me right from the opening. I’m a sucker for good snow shots. But the framing and lighting and subdued colours and sheer elegance of the shot designs are nothing short of visually stunning... shot after shot after shot. They feel like they’ve been ripped ruthlessly from the lense of a Krzysztof Kieslowski movie like The Double Life of Veronique or one of his Three Colours trilogy and then delicately spliced into this little masterpiece. Alfredson is a director who’s not afraid to use long takes and to use medium and long shots as opposed to close ups to tell the story. Good for him. Characters can walk off frame or be out of focus or be seen as a reflection and the director never once flinches at going for the jugular when it comes to camera placement. The shots are deceptively simple and are just genuinely blinding. For example, there’s one where a dark green pastel room is framed by a red wall on the left and by a red chair and wall on the right... it sounds like something out of an Argento movie... but it’s closer in subtlety to something Andrei Tarkovsky or Hal Hartley or the aforementioned Krzysztof Kieslowski would have shot.

The score too, by Johan Söderqvist (which I’m listening to as I type) is a great achievement. At times subdued and spare but not afraid to swell up into a passage of orchestral beauty when the mood is called for. One of the most genuinely beautiful and intelligent scores of the last ten years. Definitely a treat for the ears and if moviescoremedia have any of their 500 limited edition CDs left, it’s worth checking out. Or you could always purchase it as a download from itunes if you are so inclined. Seriously worth a listen.

In many ways the score for this movie seems to perform the same kind of function that Zbigniew Preisner’s score used to produce for Kieslowski. And yeah, sorry to push the metaphor again but I think I’m going to have to go on record now as saying... to all fans of the genius of Polish cinema...seriously... if Krzysztof Kieslowski had ever deigned to address the subject matter of blood drinking vampires in one of his films... Let The Right One In is what it would have looked and felt like.

The UK DVD has a commentary track by both the director and the writer (who also wrote the novel). I haven’t the time to listen to this right now but you can bet that it’s worth listening to.

For anyone who is truly a fan of the art of cinema... this film will help you to remember why you fell in love with film in the first place.