THREE COLORS: RED (1994) - 11/26/2024
A major disconnection
The final installment in Kiewślowski’s Three Colors Trilogy is probably his most beloved of and widely heralded of all three. Red premiered at Cannes in 1994, three months after White won Berlin, and became the only film of the three to not win its festival because that same year Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or. The studio went on to push it for Academy Awards in which it got three nominations for Best Cinematography (lost to Legends of the Fall), Original Screenplay (lost, again, to Pulp Fiction), and Best Director (lost to Zemeckis for Forrest Gump), and also failed to get nominated for Best Foreign Feature because while it was Switzerland's official entry, it wasn’t predominantly a Swiss production which disqualified it (much like how White was a joint production between Poland and France)1. Yet, even despite its awards misses, Red has endured as the most famous and popular of all three.
Red opens with a mysterious hand dialing a phone which immediately throws us into the phone jack in the wall, following a serious of red fiber optic cables, just to shoot us back out to cables that go underwater, bring us back on land, through some tunnels and switch boards, to be stopped at a red light, showing us a missed connection. This call was meant for Valentine (Irène Jacob), a young model living by herself in Geneva, Switzerland, from her boyfriend Michel, whom we never see and just lives on the other end of the phone during the entire film. Valentine is our main protagonist, as we follow her through her life in Geneva. One day, during a drive home, she clips a dog running through the street. She gets out to find the injured animal whose address is on its collar, and decides to take it to its owner because she doesn’t know what else to do. When she arrives, the doors to the house are wide open, and she finds an old man Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant) sitting in his house, listening to his HAM radio. She informs him of the situation and he seems to not care, telling her to take the dog.
Valentine goes to the vet, where she gets care for the dog2, Rita, and finds out she is pregnant with puppies. She goes through her daily life again until one day, when she decides to take Rita off of her leash, she runs away. Valentine goes on a search for Rita throughout the city only to find her back at Joseph’s house where they meet each other again outside. She follows Joseph inside and arrives back at the HAM Radio, where she learns that he is using it to eavesdrop on local phone calls from his neighbors. Although she finds it apprehensive and immoral, Valentine cannot help but stay and listen to Joseph as he explains to her why he does this, his fascination with everyone, and how you really learn who people are when you listen in on what they don’t want to hear. And although Valentine disapproves, a budding relationship forms with this cold man who is clearly all alone.
Like the previous two films, Blue and White, this film drenches itself with the title color red. Throughout the film, red is predominantly displayed in foreground and background items to highlight the third principle of the French tricolour: fraternity. Red is the color of Valentine’s car, the café she attends every morning, the phone she uses - it’s in the gum she blows against a red background during her initial photoshoot, probably the single lasting image of this film. It’s not just red though, it’s the browns and burgundies that merge with our standard notion of what red is to make sure we feel a warmth everywhere in this film. From every person to every place. What makes this concept so interesting as well, is that it completely offsets the coldness we associate with blue and the neutralness and absence of color in white.
Red, unlike its counterparts, is full of life and warmth, showing the vibrant and cheery life of a young, beautiful model living her best life. However, this seemingly cheery person, as we soon learn, feels as if she has no real connection to the world around her. Her long distance boyfriend Michel cannot connect with her on a personal level and physical level which creates botha physical and emotional distance from Valentine. In her opening scene, we hear her on the phone talking about how she missed him so much that she slept with his red jacket in bed, just to have his scent next to her. She goes through life bowling with colleagues, talking to her family on the phone, or meeting her fellow patrons at the café, but she does not know these people. The photographer that took her picture for the gum ad in the beginning of the film notices that she feels lonely and during a proof session, tries to take advantage of this sad female, but fails to his dismay. Valentine may be a model, so she is at least known because she is prominently displayed everywhere; but what we as the audience cannot do is assume that just because you have a profession where you are seen and known that you cannot feel alone.
Her isolation throughout his film is represented in various ways, such as the way she is juxtaposed within the reds around her. Sure, she is seen wearing several reds that follow suit with the spaces she moves through, but more often than not she wears neutrals of blacks and grays that coincide with red. An interpretation of this could easily be that by wearing neutral colors that pair with red, she is just living alongside these ideals rather than fully embracing them. On the surface, she may seem as if she is embodying these emotions and feelings, but underneath she feels empty and ambivalent to them.
I think something more jarring are the greens she wears that completely counteract this vibrant world. Green is obviously red’s complementary color - the sole secondary color that red is not a part of. Because of this, green is so jarring when matched against red - the same with purple and gold, and blue and orange. We see her sweaty, in the red ballet studio, with those around her working hard on their bodies, only to be cut from an intense close up on Valentine immediately to her chugging a water bottle with a green label against the background of a vibrant green tree. Later, when she is walking in a fashion show, she dawns an emerald colored dress and is paired with another model who is wearing a blood red gown as they intermingle on the figure eight catwalk. This scene is made more poignant by the neutral whites from the stage and chandeliers. Later, when she is on a call with Michel, she is wearing a green sleeping gown, trying to have a loving, passionate call with Michel, who is not having any of it. All of these pieces are meant to show that while Valentine inhabits this animated world, she, clearly, does not feel a part of it.
Another way the disconnection in this world manifests is through the actual interactions that occur in this film which happen to be over the phone and not in person. The technological advances in the early 90s allowed for a lot more connectivity throughout not only just the country, but the rest of the world. From the early days of the internet to fiber optics allowing for high speed, direct phone calls, the word started to become more cohesive than ever. Yet, perhaps because of all of this, because of the lack of necessary face to face interaction, we allowed ourselves to be distant from one another. Even with all this ability to be so tethered, we have become more separated than ever. We see this with Michel, who allows himself to be so harsh and jealous and angry with Valentine over the phone because he does not have to hurt her in person, or in Valentine’s inability to be connected with her brother, who we learn is himself, disjointed from the world through his drug use, something Valentine cannot bring herself to deal with. Phones are a barrier used to view someone on the other end, not actually interact with them. Kieślowski was clearly ahead of the time seeing what society has fallen into over the course of the following thirty years with more advancements in phone and internet technology.
The most damning of all is probably the smaller asides we see of Valentine’s neighbor Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit)3. Auguste and Valentine live a block from one another yet in some way, somehow, they do not know each other. Even though they go to the same places, walk by each other, have so many missed connections in so many ways, they are like two magnets with the same polarity. They constantly get close but ultimately, some invisible force keeps them from each other until they connect in the final scene of the film. How can two people so similar in proximity and life never have met? This is another point in the lack of connectivity within this new age and new world. We do not know our neighbors because we do not need to. We only need to be in contact with the people we want to be, and everyone else is just a secondary player in our lives. The technological barriers have been put up and are impossible to break down. This new age lacks a shared sense of brotherhood.
So how do we address a theme of fraternity in a world that seems disengaged? This is what makes Joseph so interesting, for he is the one breaking these barriers down by creeping in on different phone calls around his neighborhood. He notices the lack of ability for today’s humanity to be with each other and kicks the door down, forcing himself to be a part of what is going on in his neighbors lives, whether they like it or not. This concept is especially interesting for a man, as we learned, who used to be a judge.
Judges, of course, are people who make the final decisions in legal cases that primarily have to do with people’s liberties and equalities in society - the two other themes of Blue and White respectively. It makes it even more interesting that all of this is happening in Geneva Switzerland, a place that is famously neutral in its geo-political leanings4. Switzerland in this film, is about as far removed from the going ons of the post-Cold War manifestations that are taking place in the rest of Europe as you can get from within the continent. There are no hints at anything that has to do with developing nations, or power dynamics economically or socially within the context of this film. In fact, this movie itself stands alone ideologically compared to the previous two entrants. The geographical location just adds to the concept of self-isolationism and how we all can just turn a blind eye to our neighbors around us. Which again, makes it interesting for Joseph, a judge in his previous life, to forcibly insert himself into these individual worlds.
Clearly, this is a curmudgeonly old man who doesn’t want to admit that he is alone, but he is, so when Valentine enters herself into his world, it is this connection they both have been yearning for. Nothing on paper or over the phone, face to face connection of being seen and heard. When they are hurt they can see and feel each other in person. Reds and warmth constantly surround these two throughout this film, yet they seem to have a complete aversion to them. They are constantly seen wearing neutrals of blacks, grays, and whites, that reflect the reds of love and life, but never fully embrace them. Throughout the film, they both dawn a few pieces here and there when they seem to embrace the concepts a little more (like when Valentine initially starts to take care of Rita) but it isn’t until the end when they let the love and bond of friendship fully enter their lives that the fully begin to wear the color it represents.
The warm light plays a large part in this as well, not just for the motif but to express how each person finally starts to embrace this concept. Take, for instance, when they are sitting and talking in front of the radio. As Valentine is about to leave Joseph’s house, he tells her not to move, because the light is about to come adorn them through the windows. This is the first time that warmth has entered the lives of these characters as we watch it flood their faces. Slowly, throughout the film, they embrace the feelings of companionship they have been searching for separately, and become whole.
What’s more interesting is how this film splits its voice between two characters as opposed to Blue and White. In Blue, we follow Julie, a French woman, and in White we follow Karol, a Polish man. As I have asserted before, this could be a representation of each of the cities in each of those films. Regardless, what we have are two separate films split equally between two opposite sexes. What this third film does is not only address the literal concept of brotherhood, but also delves into a more general sense of companionship by taking the two sexes and combining them for one joint venture. This idea also examines how we cannot just isolate ourselves within our worlds, but we must be open with them as well to have a truly fulfilled society.
Red is a perfect capstone for a trilogy that, throughout, examines ideas of loneliness and isolation. Kieślowski proves that choosing these lifestyles and not embracing humanity is what tears us apart as both an individual and as a society. If we do not help ourselves and help others5, then we are no better than the communist society that built up walls and kept us from each other. There is no liberty or equality without true fraternity, and all of the complications and necessities that come with it.
Another symbol of companionship.
Auguste also has a dog he abandons towards the end of the film, symbolizing his feelings of companionship at that point.
Its flag is also predominantly red.
As Valentine finally does with another old woman trying to deposit a bottle compared to Julie and Karol who did not.