I finished up revisiting Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colours" trilogy today and as might be expected a mighty good time was had by all...or me anyways. I suppose what impresses me the most with these movies as a whole is that despite their thematic differences their emotionally resonant concurrence in presented in a manner which is surprisingly free of not only the shackles of aggressive didactism, but also that of forcing any clear judgement upon any of its characters by refusing to label them as "bad" or "good" even if clearly some are perhaps overtly more magnanimous than others.

As are many overlapping ideals, this point is pounded down with a strong sense of finality in the last film 'Red' when the judge freely admits that perhaps he was in error to rule anybody as "guilty" as who is he to say that he would not have reacted in a similar manner as the criminals put before him?

It's a fairly common thought that Blue is the anti-tragedy, White is the anti-comedy, and Red is the anti-romance and to that point I don't disagree. But to take that further along my own initial point I find that overall the films are anti almost everything in their unwillingness to give into the familiar movie traps of themes involving so much morality and emotion. These films aren't only unwilling to judge the characters, they're also unwilling to wallow in any of its own emotional themes no matter how inherently tense they can commonly be.

There's this strange sense of calm brought to each and every film that, far from feeling contrived for the sake of some artistic goal of the director, give the films this pervasive sense of heightened realism -- a startling thought considering how the films deal with not only some very powerful themes but also how it lightly dips its toes into the fantastic in terms of coincidence from the mythic through the mundane. This pronounced calm has the effect of completely draining the films of any pretentiousness and allows the simplicity of the core narrative to hold sway. This in turn gives the film a simple honesty that allows them to be enjoyed by the casual viewer as much as the more experienced viewer who can appreciate the subtlety of what Kieslowski has crafted by employing a multitude of symbolic and emotional cures playing of the various themes and colors of each individual films -- or in the case of White the profound and literal lack of color.

So basically: Deceptively profound movies due to subtlety of craft and all that jazz.

Then I suppose we're at the elephant in the room as to which film is the best one. From what I've gathered over the years it typically goes Red>Blue>White but as anyone who vaguely knows me I'm not big on grading subjective works of art. I will admit that I have fun with lording this ideal over many other film fans that love to make lists n' such, but honestly it's just how I am and I truly don't know if that makes me wiser unwilling to turn films into chess-pieces, or just a coward unwilling to make a stand and defend my decision. Who can say? I am a bit of a coward so that's entirely possible.

I do obviously love all the films and appreciate what they bring to the table for very different reasons. Blue and Red have the big, big stars and Blue has Juliette Binoche one of my favorite actresses. I love the way Blue is visually and thematically so cold and distant and how music is so intrinsically bound around her character. But then again I love in Red how the natural distance between people in the modern era gets a sort of mythical spin in the way it plays with the "student is now the master" dynamic and somehow manages to remain grounded despite the multitude of overlapping parallels.

But if push came to shove I would concede that I appreciate White the most for the simple fact that the character resonated more strongly with me and I must say wandering about the internet it amuses me mightily to see poor misguided fools throw around that misogyny word in connection to White thereby demonstrating to me just how little they paid attention to the film. If you thought Dominque was an antagonist or that Karol was planning revenge...you might be a redneck. Or at the very least a fool.

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