"White"
"Red"
◎ Liang Kun
To commemorate the greatest "1994" in the history of film, the China Film Archive launched a "three-color topic" this month, bringing Krzysztov to everyone. Kieslowski's "Blue, White and Red" trilogy allows movie fans to revisit the classics and reinterpret the profound meaning.
, the greatest film history in 1994, was a year when the screen "exploded", "Forrest Gump", "Shawshank's Redemption", "Pulp Fiction", "This Killer Is Not So Cold", "The Lion King", "Living", " "Sunny Day"... and Krzysztof Kieslovsky's final work-"Red" in the "Blue White Red" trilogy.
This year's Cannes International Film Festival, although "Red" was shortlisted, it was finally defeated by "Pulp Fiction" and Quentin Tarantino took home the Palme d'Or. Even the pinnacle of film history cannot be a joy for everyone. The long and painful thinking of European films is no match for the adrenaline of American films, which seems to be a hint of the changing trend of the times. However, this does not prevent the "Blue, White and Red" trilogy from becoming an immortal in the history of film, not a "explosive", but the kind of teaching material.
French bottles, Polish wine
blue, white and red, three colors, corresponding to the main colors of the three movies, and three different stories. In short, "Blue" is redemption, "White" is revenge, and "Red" is a parallel universe of love. The most common and official explanation is that they correspond to the three colors of the French flag, representing three spirits: blue-freedom, white-equality, and red-fraternity. But in my opinion, the three spirits have already formed an intertextuality in the three stories, and labeling them separately is just to comply with the considerations of the capital and the market. Because these trilogy seem very French, but they are actually very Polish.
As a French-born Polish director, Kieslowski sees the different meanings of the two countries to him in this way, "I don’t think I’m a global citizen, I still think I’m Polish... When I went to Poland, there was a return, The feeling of going home... I didn't feel that way home when I returned to Paris. I came to Paris, but I returned to Poland" ("Kieslowski on Kieslowski"). In the creation of the
"Blue, White and Red" trilogy, Kieslowski used his long-term gold medal partner-screenwriter Piešewicz and composer Presner, both of whom are also Polish. From the picture to the music, the Polish complex and Polish temperament are everywhere in the film. "White" also sets the male protagonist as a Polish, and his revenge is also realized in Poland. The "Blue, White and Red" trilogy can be said to be French bottles filled with Polish wine, but after all, it still tastes Polish.
From this point of view, the idea of "freedom, equality, and fraternity" proposition is quite wise. It can also make Kieslovsky blatantly entrain private goods. For the film, regardless of the label, the color itself is meaningful enough. As the main colors of the three films, blue, white, and red are also used as a model for the film’s audiovisual language.
Mysterious Realism
Watching Kieslowski’s movies, I always think of Bergman, thinking of the poems and dreams embedded in the gaps of real life, and the puzzling predictions. In the
"Blue, White and Red" trilogy, "Blue" is like a dream. Julie lost her husband and daughter in a car accident. She was in pain and unable to extricate herself. She also learned that her husband had a lover, and she was pregnant. Pregnant. To be precise, "Blue" is how Julie got out of the nightmare.
"White" tells the story of Carlo, who was abandoned by his ex-wife, went out of the house, returned to his hometown and made a comeback. Finally, he set a trap by "deception" to retaliate against his ex-wife. "White" is like a fable, there may be small loopholes in logic, but the ending will eventually point to what we expect.
In the story of "Red", Valentina, the old judge, and Auguste seem to have a parallel relationship structure, but they communicate the past, present, and future, forming a complex and ambiguous prophecy system. Although the "Blue, White and Red" trilogy has different expressions, it always pays attention to the plight of the individual in reality, records love and trust, and their collapse and reconstruction.
, who was a documentary director, always cared about reality. When he felt that he could not get more freedom in documentary creation, he turned to film. Recording and fiction are issues that entangled his entire creative career. The documentary is very limited by the subject. He can’t get enough space for fiction.Slovsky is also used to accumulating material with methods similar to documentary shooting. At this time, his freedom was realized in editing, and his brilliance was also manifested from this. The original role of
movie editing is to create a smooth narrative, while Kieslovsky’s movies are good at losing information and creating gaps in understanding. What he deliberately lost during editing may be an account of what you expect to see, it may be a period of time, or even a large plot. For example, in "Blue", Julie returns to the house and sits with blue reflections on her face repeatedly, but the next shot does not tell you where the light source comes from and what she is looking at. Only by contacting the plot before and after can it be concluded that the reflection comes from the fragments of the blue crystal chandelier that she angrily grabbed. That lamp also witnessed the happy past of the family. Another example is the opening of "White", where the huge suitcases on the luggage conveyor are repeatedly inserted into the plot of Carlo's appeal to the court. As the plot progresses, you realize that in order to smuggle back to Poland, Carlos had to pack himself into a suitcase. The opening shot was a preview of his encounter and a turning point in the whole film. Because of entering this suitcase, Carlo's fate is about to change. Editing techniques like
make the story both true and illusory, and the protagonist is faced with a personal suffering. The two cannot be directly connected, and the audience’s imagination is required. In order to bond and restore it into a complete story. This also makes the realism of the film exudes a mysterious atmosphere, and becomes a symbol of Kieslovsky's film. The lingering remarks leave plenty of room for the audience's self-interpretation, and there is no unified standard answer for the ending.
The polyphony of lonely life
If life has a chance to come back, can some tragedies be avoided? Will there be another ending besides death in the life of the cliff?
is good at building the polyphonic structure of life, which is another characteristic of Kijeslovsky's films, which he practiced before the "Blue, White and Red" trilogy. After reading his "Song of Opportunity", I know that the idea of "Lola Run" is not groundbreaking. The same person, different choices, different results, what cannot be achieved in reality, movies can be freely imagined. This is also fully reflected in "Veronica's Double Life".
In the "Blue, White and Red" trilogy, "Blue" and "White" are both polyphony writing life on the boundary of life and death. In "Blue", Julie lost her loved one in a car accident. She thought that she would be saved by throwing away the memories of her past life, but the truth that gradually emerged made her former happiness become Julie's wishful thinking. Her husband's betrayal rushed Julie's memory into the turbulence. There was no exit or direction. She chose to let the old self die in order to let a new self survive. Carlo in
"White" is equivalent to "dead" twice. The first time he smuggled back to Poland in a suitcase, encountered robbers, had nothing, and almost died. The second time was even more ironic. In order to trick his ex-wife into showing up with his inheritance, Carlo personally planned his own funeral. The revenge was achieved, and Carlo's identity "died", and "new life" was just another lonely journey.
and "Red" is a more complicated construction. The old judge and Auguste are like the relationship between the past and the present. Otherwise, why are there so many overlapping coincidences? At the end of the film, Valentina’s freeze-frame shots on the ship and the huge advertising photos coincide, heralding a new reincarnation, the true love that the old judge missed, can we continue writing between August and Valentina? At the end of "Red", the protagonists of the trilogy are all rescued in a shipwreck. Is this gathering a metaphor for a reunion, or is they the starting point for their wanderings? Kieslowski, who has never shy away from tragedy, will not easily promise a happy ending, perhaps more loyal to life itself.
has the opinion that fate is the ultimate topic of Kieslovsky’s films. I just think that the setting of life polyphony is a kind of dissolution of fatalism, which can be understood as impermanence, but it is by no means a definite number. Kieslowski is certainly not an optimist, because even if there are multiple possibilities, what he presents in his films is still the loneliness of life.
Looking back now, when "Blue" was created, it coincided with the beginning of the establishment of the European Union. A clue in the film was that Julie took over from her husband to complete the "European Concerto". Now more than 20 years have passed, the concerto has an overtone of "Brexit". . The world flows, and the convergence and fission of history always have similar reincarnations. Perhaps in a few decades, we will encounter historical slices that are highly similar to the background of "Blue". What kind of screen story will emerge at that time? z2After z
completed the "blue, white and red" trilogy with high-intensity work, it was also in 1994 that Kieslowski announced his retirement. But he still couldn't make a real retreat, and began to compose the "Heaven, Hell, Purgatory" trilogy with the screenwriter Piesiewicz. In 1996, Kieslowski went to sleep during a heart operation at the age of 55.
There is a sculpture on his tombstone. The thumb and index finger of both hands are framed into a rectangle. This is a "portable" viewfinder commonly used by directors and photographers when shooting. The viewfinder is built by Kieslowski. The world of movies also frame the unfinished story. The "Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory" trilogy was later completed by other directors. Perhaps the final trilogy was the polyphony of life left by Kieslovsky.
