The Human Experience in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colors”
by Jose Ordoñez Jr.
A common fault of humans is the inability to recognize suffering as a shared universal experience. The individual fails to empathize with others and selfishly claims misfortune as an exclusively personal experience; it’s the “you just wouldn’t understand” cliché. Often enough, we fail to realize that community relies on shared sorrow. We isolate ourselves from those who love us because we feel that we are not “good” enough. The devil’s work is to corner us into outcasts; every single one of us.
Photo Credit Criterion - www.criterion.com
“Kieslowski shows us the values that weave a nation together: community, loyalty, and acceptance.”
Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy showcases the lives of three distinctly lonely people; the wealthy widow of the country’s most beloved classical composer, the foreign hairstylist who hopes to gain his wife’s love back, and the pessimistic ex-judge who creeps into phone conversations. All three of which share the same sorrow. Don’t worry, this review is spoiler-free.
Three Colors depicts the universal human experience by exploring these three lives. In a way, Kieslowski proves that he could have chosen any other three people to explore, he just happened to randomly select these three. With a finale as epic as Paul Thomas Anderson’s best* film to date, Magnolia, (this is one is for you, Tim), Three Colors goes a step above PTA’s masterpiece and imagines a future where even unexpected community is better than intentional isolation. At the end of the day, Kieslowski shows us the values that weave a nation together: community, loyalty, and acceptance.
Here’s a definitive ranking of these films, from most favorite to favorite:
Jose
Blue: Unforgivingly cinematic. Rich of nuance and symbols. Makes me cry every time.
Red: Mouth-gaping finale. Artistically and narratively minimalistic. Heart-warming.
White: Wait a second, is this black comedy, or just really deep slapstick?
Sunday
White: Unexpectedly deep with a twisted ending.
Blue: Heartbreaking; moving performance by lead character Julie.
Red: Compelling; displays the importance of unlikely friendships.
We highly recommend you check out this trilogy. The order is Blue, White, Red. Whatever you do, make sure you watch Red last.
Before leaving, I could not forgive myself if I didn’t share this passage with you:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1st Corinthians 13 (NIV).
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