Three Colors: Red

Maybe you're the woman I never met.(The Judge to Valentine in "Red")

Kieslowski's "Red" is a wonderful film. This is a blunt statement and one I don't throw away at any given time. When I was first introduced to Kieslowski's "Three Colors Trilogy" over three years ago or more, I was truly affected by it like no other film has. "Red" is the perfect finale to the great trilogy and to the great director's career. It encapsulates much of what Kieslowki explored in many of his films.

As with the last two, "Red" is connected to the color on the french flag, (Red=fraternity). The fraternity Kieslowski chooses to explore has to do with a retired judge and a young student. Kieslowski's muse Irene Jacob from "The Double Life of Veronique" plays the student Valentine, and former french matinee idol Jean-Louis Trintignant plays the judge.

The film begins when Valentine accidentally runs over a stray dog in the street. Seeing the address on the dog's collar, she takes it back to its owner who is the Judge. Initially we see the Judge is indifferent, so Valentine cares for the dog herself. Later when the dog is healed, she runs away and goes back to the Judge's house. Valentine then finds that his house is full of surveillance equipment, as we find out The Judge is spying on his neighbour's phone conversations. Valentine is shocked and repulsed, but she stays and her and the Judge have a conversation. At the end, she has awakened something in him, and later he sends letters to his neighbours confessing his actions.

While this is going on, another story is unfolding about a young law student named August (Jean-Pierre Lirot) who lives on the same street as Valentine. August and Valentine never meet, they are shown together on screen a few times in near misses, but as the story unfolds we find his story is strangely connected to the Judge's.

Like "Blue" and "White", "Red" isn't really about what it's symbolizing. The fraternity between Valentine and the Judge works as a springboard to explore further themes of coincidence and chance, but also about connection and communication. "Red" can be seen as a companion piece to "The Double Life of Veronique" which also explored a somewhat alternate universe where two versions of the same woman could co-exist. In "Red" we see two versions of the Judge with him and the young August, it's about a second chance, and Valentine is the missing piece to all of this.

"Red" is the very reason I started falling in love with Kieslowski's films, it remains so elusive and mysterious, the more I watch it, the more I love it. It's the kind of movie that you can't watch just once, but of course I could say that about any of Kieslowski's films.

Much has been said about "Red" already by people who have seen it more times than I have (although I like to think I'm catching up with those experts). Like I found with "White", I see "Red" to be a deceptive love story. We are left to wonder if The Judge can live through this younger version of him and erase the mistakes of his past, so in that way it's a romantic fantasy, which is something I understand Kieslowski himself took it as.

It's easy to fall in love with Irene Jacob in this film, I think I have a little bit myself. She is a vision of loveliness when she first walks onto screen, Kieslowski must've seen something very warm and loving in her, it's sometimes hard to see if a woman like Valentine actually exists. In an interview, I was shocked to learn Jacob described the film as being harsh, and she described her scenes with the judge to be unpleasant. However she even admits that Keislowski must've seen in her the ability to portray Valentine as someone who could only be good which is why I think we don't get any of the harshness on screen.

"Red" is a film full of compassion and humanity, which is probably why I love it so much, but on top of that I continue to come back to the same questions whenever I see a Kislowski film. Are we apart of this sort of connection that we don't know about? Do we have a soul? Are things preordained? Is everything just luck or coincidence? Myself I go back and forth, but I always find it intriguing when someone like Kieslowski comes and opens up a new paradigm for me to examine. If one were to ask me if films can be life changing, I would say yes, this is one of them.