Red
Well, now that I’ve mentioned Blue and White, I suppose it’s fitting for me to rave about Red (1994), the third in Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy, which I saw tonight. In Red, a young model named Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidentally hits a dog which belongs to a retired and rather unpleasant judge. Their growing friendship intersects at a couple of points with the failing romance between Auguste, a young law student who lives across the street from Valentine, and a woman who lives somewhere near the judge. But Valentine and Auguste themselves consistently fail to meet. One might call the movie an “almost romance.” And the ending is satisfying and full of possibility.
Interestingly enough, the main characters from Blue and White also show up at one point in the movie. As well, all three movies show an old woman, bent nearly double, trying to deposit a bottle in a large garbage bin (or maybe it’s a recycling bin?) but being barely able to get it in the hole, which is a little too high for her to reach.
I quoted part of what Denis Haack said earlier, but I’ll give the whole quotation now: “Like the image of the tangle of electric wires stretched between houses and tenement buildings which appears on the screen, Kieslowski is reminding an individualistic world that relationship and community are not only essential, but inescapable.” Red is supposed to be the film about fraternity, but one could easily say that the whole trilogy is about love. We live in community, and, like the recurring old woman, we need to help and to be helped.
One catch with this “almost romance”? It reminds me that I’m single — on Christmas Eve, no less! Ah, well. I’m off to finish up The Devil in a Forest, drink some tea, unwrap a present or two, and head to bed. Gotta preach in the morning! Merry Christmas, everybody!