For the 15th year of my blog, I intended for a subject worthy enough of a round anniversary. Obviously, I didn't have enough time to find anything new and I'm again forced to recycle something. This spring, if I remember well, I've rewatched Kieslowski's colors trilogy, supposedly connected to the French Revolution symbols through the well-known colors of the flag - bleu, blanc, rouge. I've always found it a bit overrated, maybe except for the second movie, "Blanc". In essence, it's a comedy, slightly bitter, but that's what makes it special.
Karol Karol is a Polish barber, who recently arrived in Paris, and even more recently left without a dime by his ex-wife after a quick divorce motivated by his incapacity to perform his duties as a husband. Losing his passport, without speaking much French, and with his hair salon set on fire by his former wife, he ends up with a big empty suitcase as a beggar in the metro station, singing with a pair of... combs. The Polish tune catches the attention of Mikolaj, another Polish guy, considerably more wealthy, who offers a deal - to kill somebody who wants to die but doesn't have the guts to do it by himself (we finally find out that "the somebody" is Mikolaj, but let's save some of the story). Karol says no, but Mikolaj finally decides to help him by arranging an illegal journey to their home country, packing Karol in his empty suitcase. Long story short, Karol gets back to Poland barely alive, and slowly starts building a revenge plan. How does that go? It's probably better to watch the movie than read it here :)
Unlike the rest of Kieslowski's trilogy, "Blanc" is more a Polish production than a French one. Besides the story, slightly unrealistic at some point, but dense enough to keep you watching - we definitely have a subject here and it's probably better to keep the current entry spoiler-free - we have very well-picked casting. The score is also surprisingly good and allowed me to discover Zbigniew Preisner (the composer), my only reference until then in Polish film music being Wojciech Kilar. The cinematography is nice, but that's valid for the entire trilogy. Each movie shows an obvious intent to bring forward as much as possible the color set in its title.
As far as I know "Blanc" is mostly considered by film critics a good movie, but still the weakest of the three. Maybe because it's the one with a rich plot, drawing attention there instead of being centered on deep philosophical questions. Concerning that, I didn't care much about the references it draws to "egalite" = the middle link between the "liberte" and "fraternite", as it's considered to be, but I've seen it simply as a stand-alone picture. A "revenge movie" in the end, which surprisingly presents itself this time as a comedy packed within a drama. Or the other way around :) Pretty much like the life of the main character. Maybe that's a reflection theme that's deeper than others ;)
Rating: 4 out of 5
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