QCinema 2016, part 4: Three Colors: White works on a cruel irony
"White" (1994), the second installment in Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy, is a strange brew. It's a rags-to-riches drama, an absurdist sketch, a revenge tale and an unconsummated romantic comedy. Its lead character, a Polish immigrant named Karol Karol (portrayed by Zbigniew Zamachowski, hilarious and heartbreaking), is one such down-on-his-luck guy: divorced by his young and pretty wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) because of his impotence and left penniless and homeless in a foreign country. He then begs for alms in an underground subway where he is chanced upon and eventually befriended by a fellow Pole named Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos) who, we later learn, has a "friend" who's willing to pay a large amount of money to someone who's able to help him commit suicide (predates Abbas Kiarostami's "Taste of Cherry") and through whom Karol is able to return to Poland (in an absurd kind of way). Once there, the Chaplin-like protagonist is able to get back on his feet through various money-making schemes (some are legal, while some are not, with Mikolaj as his partner), which then gives him the opportunity to finally get back at Dominique.
The white color stands for equality on the French national flag and putting this ideal in the film's context, it then refers to Karol's revenge, that is, his getting on equal terms with the woman who was the main cause of his misfortune, who's no other than his ex-wife. The film may have a comedic tone (which tonally sets it apart from the other two films in the trilogy), but there's really a dark irony that runs through it: that the void in one's life can be caused by the very thing which we all aspire for, which is love. (One critic suggested that the film might as well be called "Black".) Love fulfills as much as it disappoints;love can be tender in the same way that it can also be cruel;love can lift up one's spirits while it can also pull one's morale down. Love is generally either-or and unfortunately for Karol, it mostly leans towards the undesirable part. Karol may have the sincerest and noblest of intentions, but lady-luck simply won't be by his side when it comes to matters of the heart.
Cinematographer Edward Klosinski captures the dead-beat path of Karol's life through the snow-covered bleak landscape of Karol's hometown, where the frostiness of everything else might also be comparable to the hard-heartedness of the lovelorn. We can see again that the color-motif of the film serves an ironic purpose. In that while white is to be generally and commonly regarded as the color of a wedding (something which Karol and Dominique previously experienced), it's the very same thing that the couple isn't able to hold on to forever, something that gets broken in their lives. White is something that's supposed to be pure and blissful. But in the hapless couple's case, it gets tainted and torn apart. Kieslowski once again plays God by putting his characters through a cruel twist of fate.
More cruel and ironic still is the filmmaker's concept of equality quite different from what it stands on the French flag. Rather than something that pertains to a way of looking at things that goes beyond class, race, status and gender, that breaks all divisions and boundaries, the notion of equality in the film's context is retaliatory and hurtful in nature. Equality means getting on equal terms with someone through revenge. Just like what the filmmaker did in "Blue" and in his much-earlier ten-part epic "Dekalog", he (along with frequent collaborator Krzysztof Piesiwicz) situates some lofty and grand ideals and precepts in the private lives of certain individuals which may bring about a different, but still enlightening, interpretation of those thoughts. In the cinematic universe of Kieslowski, there occurs a "humanization" of what's seemingly at first intangible and incomprehensible. Though they don't entirely lose their metaphysical intimations, in the sense that these things, looking
from above (again like playing God), comprise a grand design of interconnectedness among human interactions and destinies, always a preoccupation of Kieslowski. He's ever the cinematic master-puppeteer of chance, coincidence and intangible grand design.
Because of the profound comic irony that propels his orchestration of the film's narrative, Kieslowski was awarded the Best Director prize in the 1994 Berlin film festival. Each of the major characters has his/her own ironic twist of fate. We've already said something about Karol. In regards his friend Mikolaj, it turns out that (spoiler) he's really the one who's willing to pay someone to assist him with taking his own life. And when that moment already comes, he undergoes a change of mind but decides to pay the person (no other than Karol) anyway. Concerning Karol's wife Dominique, after receiving news of her former husband's "death" (another spoiler), it seems that she begins to have a change of heart towards him. But Karol actually has more in store for her, leading to that final scene which, its poignancy notwithstanding, may lead us to ask what are the two really thinking or what is really happening to them at that time? Leaving viewers with something to ponder about - ah, that's always Kieslowski.
(Zbigniew Zamachowski is a man being tested by life's ironies in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors: White")
The white color stands for equality on the French national flag and putting this ideal in the film's context, it then refers to Karol's revenge, that is, his getting on equal terms with the woman who was the main cause of his misfortune, who's no other than his ex-wife. The film may have a comedic tone (which tonally sets it apart from the other two films in the trilogy), but there's really a dark irony that runs through it: that the void in one's life can be caused by the very thing which we all aspire for, which is love. (One critic suggested that the film might as well be called "Black".) Love fulfills as much as it disappoints;love can be tender in the same way that it can also be cruel;love can lift up one's spirits while it can also pull one's morale down. Love is generally either-or and unfortunately for Karol, it mostly leans towards the undesirable part. Karol may have the sincerest and noblest of intentions, but lady-luck simply won't be by his side when it comes to matters of the heart.
Cinematographer Edward Klosinski captures the dead-beat path of Karol's life through the snow-covered bleak landscape of Karol's hometown, where the frostiness of everything else might also be comparable to the hard-heartedness of the lovelorn. We can see again that the color-motif of the film serves an ironic purpose. In that while white is to be generally and commonly regarded as the color of a wedding (something which Karol and Dominique previously experienced), it's the very same thing that the couple isn't able to hold on to forever, something that gets broken in their lives. White is something that's supposed to be pure and blissful. But in the hapless couple's case, it gets tainted and torn apart. Kieslowski once again plays God by putting his characters through a cruel twist of fate.
More cruel and ironic still is the filmmaker's concept of equality quite different from what it stands on the French flag. Rather than something that pertains to a way of looking at things that goes beyond class, race, status and gender, that breaks all divisions and boundaries, the notion of equality in the film's context is retaliatory and hurtful in nature. Equality means getting on equal terms with someone through revenge. Just like what the filmmaker did in "Blue" and in his much-earlier ten-part epic "Dekalog", he (along with frequent collaborator Krzysztof Piesiwicz) situates some lofty and grand ideals and precepts in the private lives of certain individuals which may bring about a different, but still enlightening, interpretation of those thoughts. In the cinematic universe of Kieslowski, there occurs a "humanization" of what's seemingly at first intangible and incomprehensible. Though they don't entirely lose their metaphysical intimations, in the sense that these things, looking
from above (again like playing God), comprise a grand design of interconnectedness among human interactions and destinies, always a preoccupation of Kieslowski. He's ever the cinematic master-puppeteer of chance, coincidence and intangible grand design.
Because of the profound comic irony that propels his orchestration of the film's narrative, Kieslowski was awarded the Best Director prize in the 1994 Berlin film festival. Each of the major characters has his/her own ironic twist of fate. We've already said something about Karol. In regards his friend Mikolaj, it turns out that (spoiler) he's really the one who's willing to pay someone to assist him with taking his own life. And when that moment already comes, he undergoes a change of mind but decides to pay the person (no other than Karol) anyway. Concerning Karol's wife Dominique, after receiving news of her former husband's "death" (another spoiler), it seems that she begins to have a change of heart towards him. But Karol actually has more in store for her, leading to that final scene which, its poignancy notwithstanding, may lead us to ask what are the two really thinking or what is really happening to them at that time? Leaving viewers with something to ponder about - ah, that's always Kieslowski.
(Zbigniew Zamachowski is a man being tested by life's ironies in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors: White")
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