A
trilogy of
films (
Trois couleurs) by
Krzysztof Kieslowski, loosely inspired by the French
tricolor and the ideas of
liberty,
fraternity, and
equality. Very loosely, actually: after seeing them all you have to stare very hard at your memories to see how the word fits in. They are tangentially connected to each other, except at the end of
Red, where their separate stories come together. These are Kieslowski's most popular and accessible works, and very beautiful to watch (well, I could skip
White, but the other two are both among my favourite films).
Remember this is the French tricolor, so it goes Blue-White-Red. It starts with Blue. They are in French and Polish.
In Blue, Juliette Binoche plays the wife of a great composer Patrice de Courcy suddenly killed in a car accident. At first she tries to commit suicide in the hospital where she is recovering, but gradually she decides to seek her liberty, a new life away from their old home. She doesn't want anyone from the past following her, and she doesn't want to get involved with the people around her in her new block of flats; but she does find herself befriending a sad exotic dancer. Also, there is the matter of what to do with the sketches of her husband's powerful but incomplete grand oratorio for European union (music actually by Zbigniew Preisner).
White is a comedy set mainly in Poland, with Julie Delpy as the disenchanted lover of a hairdresser with ideas of advancement. He fakes his own death to try to win her back, and this is also useful in the dodgy business dealings he makes with the help of a fellow Pole met back in Paris, where it starts. They try to work their way through the country's emerging capitalism.
In Red, Irène Jacob confronts a cynical judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) amusing himself by monitoring his neighbours' phone calls. Originally calling only to return his poor dog, which she had knocked down and taken to a vet, she challenges him over his cruel hobby. They discuss the world over wine. Her own love life is made unhappy by a chance discovery.