Three Colors: Blue, White, Red (Criterion Collection)

This boldly cinematic trio of stories about love and loss from Krzysztof Kie?lowski (The Double Life of Véronique) was a defining event of the art-house boom of the 1990s. The films were named for the colors of the French flag and stand for the tenets of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, and fraternity—but this hardly begins to explain their enigmatic beauty and rich humanity. Set in Paris, Warsaw, and Geneva, and ranging from tragedy to comedy, Blue, White, and Red (Kie?lowski’s final film) examine with artistic clarity a group of ambiguously interconnected people experiencing profound personal disruptions. Marked by intoxicating cinematography and stirring performances by such actors as Juliette Binoche (Summer Hours), Julie Delpy (Before Sunset), Irène Jacob (The Double Life of Véronique), and Jean-Louis Trintignant (Z), Kie?lowski’s Three Colors is a benchmark of contemporary cinema.

Blue In the devastating first film of the Three Colors trilogy, Juliette Binoche gives a tour de force performance as Julie, a woman reeling from the tragic deaths of her husband and young daughter. But Blue is more than just a blistering study of grief; it’s also a tale of liberation, as Julie learns truths about her late composer husband’s life and attempts to free herself of the past. Shot in icily gorgeous tones by S?awomir Idziak (The Double Life of Véronique) and set to an extraordinary operatic score by Zbigniew Preisner (The Secret Garden), Blue is an overwhelming sensory experience.

1993

98 minutes

Color

2.0 surround

In French with English subtitles

1.85:1 aspect ratio

White The most playful but also the grittiest of Kie?lowski’s Three Colors films follows the adventures of Karol Karol (The Pianist’s Zbigniew Zamachowski), a Polish immigrant living in France. The hapless hairdresser opts to leave Paris for his native Warsaw after his wife (Julie Delpy) sues him for divorce (her reason: he was never able to perform in bed) and then frames him for arson after setting her own salon ablaze. White, which goes on to chronicle Karol Karol’s elaborate revenge plot, manages to be both a ticklish dark comedy about the economic inequalities of Eastern and Western Europe and a sublime reverie about twisted love. 1993

91 minutes

Color

2.0 surround

In French and Polish with English subtitles

1.85:1 aspect ratio

Red Krzysztof Kie?lowski closes his Three Colors trilogy in grand fashion with an incandescent meditation on fate and chance, starring Irène Jacob as a sweet-souled yet somber runway model in Geneva whose life intersects with that of a bitter retired judge, played by Jean Louis Trintignant. Their blossoming friendship forces each to open up in surprising emotional ways. Meanwhile, just down the street, a seemingly unrelated story of jealousy and betrayal unfolds. Red is an intimate look at forged connections and a splendid final statement from a remarkable filmmaker at the height of his powers.

1994

99 minutes

Color

2.0 surround

In French with English subtitles

1.85:1 aspect ratio