White (Three Colors Trilogy)

Three Colors: White is Krzysztof Kieslowski’s center film of his Three Color trilogy, and if it isn't the oddest of the three, it is definitely the most underrated and sublime. The Three Color Trilogy corresponds to the three hues of the French tricolor, and also to the French national principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. White, is generally said to be an anti-comedy, just as Blue is said to be an anti-tragedy, and Red is an anti-romance. Krzysztof's darkly humorous and sardonic Three Colors: White tells the story of a sexually potent Polish hairdresser who has reached the bottom of the barrel and pathetically tries to make money by performing in the Paris Metro by using his pocket comb as an instrument to inspire donations. He has barely survived a humiliating divorce, and is so desperately homesick in Paris that he devises a plan to be sent back to Warsaw by curling up in inside a suitcase.

The most playful and the grittiest of Kielowski's Three Colors films follows the adventures of Karol Karol, a Polish immigrant living in France. The hapless hairdresser opts to leave Paris for his native Warsaw when his wife sues him for divorce and frames him for arson after setting her own salon ablaze. White manages to be both a ticklish dark comedy and a sublime reverie about twisted love.