The more I attempt to analyze films by Krzysztof Kieslowski I realize that I shouldn't worry about figuring everything out. Mystery is an integral part of the ambiance of Kieslowski's work. In the case of The Double Life of Véronique, two women from different countries who were born on the same day and look exactly alike are aware of each other and able to learn from each other's mistakes and experiences even though they have never met. How these women are connected to each other is never explained nor do Kieslowski and co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz even attempt an explanation. The Double Life very much comes from the perspective of what if someone had a doppelganger without regard as to how or why.

Kieslowski seemingly shoots this film as though trying to remind the audience that they are spectators, perhaps even voyeurs. The characters and the camera often look through things, such as Weronika peering through her glass ball that causes the scenery outside the train to appear upside-down and her father looking at a painting through a magnifying glass. This recurring image of looking through objects and surfaces also brings the idea of perspective to the forefront of the film. Kieslowski challenges the viewer's perspective very early with the inverted Polish cityscape, which the audience may not recognize until seeing the subsequent shot of the little girl being held upside-down by her mother. In some shots, the camera tilts almost as an afterthought, as though catching up with the character's perspective, reminding the viewer that events are being seen through a particular set of eyes.

As one can infer from the title, the idea of doubling is central to the film. Of course, the main characters are doubles, but Kieslowski takes the concept so much farther than that both story-wise and visually. Kieslowski often captures characters and their reflections in the same shot and includes other visual "doubles" like the upside-down cityscape in Weronika's glass ball. Alexandre's profession as a puppeteer also introduces a different presentation of a double. Puppets are created in the likeness of human beings, doubling people in a way, and for Alexandre puppets act as doubles on which he may project his emotions. When Alexandre realizes that Véronique has been watching him in a mirror during his puppet show, witnessing his emotional response to the story, he reacts and seems exposed in a way that he did not feel when he thought people were watching only his puppets. And as in Red, the idea of doubles or doubling offers characters second chances, most notably in Véronique's case.

As he does in the Three Colors trilogy, Kieslowski, with the able help of director of photography Slawomir Idziak, delights in creating beautiful images from mundane occurrences and objects, like the dust from an old ceiling floating down like snow. Idziak, who again teamed up with Kieslowski for Blue, does lovely work with lighting, creating perhaps a fourth "color" film: gold. Zbigniew Preisner's haunting, melancholy score is pushed to the foreground, as it is in Blue, underscoring the similarities for me between Kieslowski's and Preisner's work: both men appreciate silence. Preisner's frequent use of rests distinguishes his compositions from others', and similarly Kieslowski's films are some of very few that often have long stretches of complete silence — no dialogue, no ambient sounds, just silence.

Irène Jacob, who also stars in Kieslowski's Red, may play two women who look alike but Weronika and Véronique are certainly not interchangeable. Weronika seems very much like Valentine from Red: warm, open, and almost child-like in her joy and manner of experiencing the world. Weronika greets all of life's experiences, even being rained on, with a welcome embrace. Véronique, however, approaches life with much more reserve and caution. Jacob gives the impression that had Kieslowski captured a longer span of Weronika and Véronique's lives that the former would have made most of the "mistakes" while the latter learned from them. But as either woman Jacob is a joy to watch, offering a thoroughly engaging, nuanced performance. I almost shudder to think how the film would have turned out had Kieslowski cast his first choice, Andie MacDowell. And making an impressive performance all the more remarkable, Jacob learned Polish to perform her part as Weronika, even though her lines were ultimately dubbed by a native speaker because of Jacob's accent.

As I watched The Double Life, particularly the second half, I was reminded of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's delightful, fairy-tale romance Amélie. Véronique finding Alexandre at a train station by listening to a tape of ambient noises seems very much like something Nino and Amélie might have done during their unique courtship, though The Double Life lacks the whimsical, fantastic tone of Amélie. Instead, The Double Life feels like a fairy tale treated as a noir piece, with its somber tone and moody lighting. This film not only deserves but demands multiple viewings to untangle the intricacies of Kieslowski and Piesiewicz's script, which is perhaps Kieslowski's point in all of this, asking the audience to think about the unseen impact of our lives on others'.

Red concludes the Three Colors trilogy in Switzerland with Valentine, a student and part-time model living in Geneva whose sole contact with her family and her boyfriend is by phone. One night she hits a dog with her car and, not knowing what to do, she takes the wounded animal to its owner, a detached and seemingly uncaring retired judge. Valentine and the judge make a somewhat unwilling acquaintance when Valentine realizes that the judge, whose legal career has made him jaded and disillusioned about justice, spends his days listening to his neighbors' telephone calls with surveillance equipment. Valentine's censure of his activities reawakens the judge's humanity and he composes letters to his neighbors confessing what he has been doing. Intertwined with the development of Valentine and the judge's friendship, a young lawyer named Auguste is betrayed by his lover Karin in events eerily similar to what happened to the judge many years ago.

Irène Jacob is wonderful as Valentine, playing her as infectiously good-natured, open, and unaffected in almost child-like way. Jean-Louis Trintignant creates an emotional foil to Valentine: where Valentine is open, the judge is closed and inscrutable. The judge is arguably the "villain" who redeems himself, but Trintignant doesn't play him twirling a black mustache. Rather, Trintignant portrays the judge's transformation from surly and uncaring to newly humanized very subtly. Jean-Pierre Lorit and Frédérique Feder give solid supporting performances as Auguste and Karin.

Red explores the political idea of fraternity, represented by the titular color on the French flag, and of the three films it offers the most literal interpretation of its theme. Valentine embodies the spirit of fraternity throughout the film, acting as an essentially decent person would: she contacts the judge after accidentally hitting his dog, she rushes to help close windows against a brewing storm in an auditorium, she says, "Have a good day," to someone never even shown on screen, and she finally helps that short, elderly person deposit a glass bottle into a recycling bin that is just out of her reach. The central relationship of the film, that of Valentine and the judge, is one of friendship, and that friendship is almost healing for both of them. The judge recovers his compassion and faith in people while Valentine really connects with someone. Even though she has very open, giving personality, Valentine does not seem to have very many friends in Geneva, and her family and her boyfriend live out of town. Perhaps the unanticipated divergence from the traditional interpretation of fraternity lies in the platonic love that emerges between her and the judge.

Though I suppose that Kieslowski might stretch the definition of fraternity a bit to include an idea of connectivity. Red is very much about connections, both obvious and invisible. Indeed, the film begins with the camera "going inside" of phone lines to follow the transmission of a phone call, connecting one person to another via wires. Kieslowski also explores unseen connections, such as music that both Valentine and Auguste listen to and the parallels between the judge and Auguste's lives. Perhaps Kieslowski suggests that this conceptualization of fraternity connects people, whether they see it or not, and Valentine represents the ideal of fraternity, acknowledging that connection through her actions.

Red is also a film about second chances. The judge has a second chance at connecting with people through his friendship with Valentine, and his dog's pregnancy offers him a second chance at being a loving pet owner. As the ending suggests, Auguste and Valentine both will have a second chance at finding love with each other, which also allows the judge's story of love and loss to have a different ending. Indeed, Kieslowski connects the three films in the final scene through this idea of second chance as well as the boat wreck. The surviving couples are either experiencing or offering a second chance at love.

While Polish cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski's beautiful photography is peppered with rich, beautiful reds, the color imagery of Red seems less specific than that of White or Blue. I do not intend to insinuate that Kieslowski's choices of red objects were not deliberate, however his use of the color seems less reserved. Red saturates the palette of this film in a way not seen in the trilogy's previous entries, but the color does retain its association with fraternity. For example, Valentine wears an item of red clothing when she visits the judge and the dog's collar is also red. But the color is more pervasive and less obvious in its representation of fraternity, which perhaps underscores the idea that Kieslowski suggests fraternity connects people in ways both seen and unseen.

The second film in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy, White follows Karol Karol (that's not a typo), a hairdresser from Poland whose French wife divorces him, seemingly because they have not had sex since their marriage. Without a job or a place to stay, Karol resorts to playing music on his comb in a train station, where he befriends a fellow Polish citizen named Mikolaj who helps smuggle him back into Poland. Upon his return to his home country, Karol sets out to earn money and become a successful businessman. Once he has established a sizable estate, he fakes his death and leaves all of his assets to his ex-wife, Dominique. When Dominique returns to her hotel after attending his funeral, she finds Karol in her room where she admits that she still loves him and they make love. Karol leaves the next morning just before the police arrive to question Dominique about the suspicious circumstances of Karol's death.

At the end of the film, Karol, who lives in secrecy with his brother, visits Dominique who has been imprisoned on suspicion of his "murder", which is how Karol and Dominique finally achieve equality, symbolized by the color white on the French flag. Both of them have been removed from society and stripped of rights: she by her status of being an imprisoned "criminal" and he by his status of being "dead". As with Blue, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz use the concept that they are exploring in an unexpected way. However, while they ultimately dismiss their re-imagined concept of liberty, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz suggest that Karol and Dominique have a real chance at mending their relationship once they have achieved this different idea of equality.

Watching White immediately after Blue can be a bit of a jolt. The tones and main characters could not be more different. White is very much a comedy, though a dark one. Zbigniew Zamachowski turns in a nicely balanced and at times almost Chaplinesque performance as Karol, able to make slapstick moments like being shit on by a bird both funny and a little heartbreaking. He also goes from those moments of broader humor to tongue-in-cheek moments, like when Karol exclaims "Home at last!" after being beaten up by disappointed thieves who stole the suitcase he uses to smuggle himself into Poland. Zamachowski always goes for a smile or a giggle rather than a big laugh, which perfectly fits the tone of the film.

The aura of Julie Delpy's character Dominique hovers over the film's proceedings as Karol tries to both get back and get back at his ex-wife; however, Dominique only appears in about 15 minutes of the 91-minute running length. Delpy is the perfect actress to be the blond, alabaster-skinned beauty of Karol's dreams, and it's a testament to her performance that Dominique is such a powerful presence in the film despite her brief screen time. In fact, I really want to see more of Dominique. I want to know more about a woman who sets fire to her own beauty salon to get her ex-husband to leave, who makes Karol listen to her have sex with another man when he calls her one night. She is like a very beautiful cat who will purr and rub against your legs but scratch you if you try to pick her up.

Even though I tell myself to pay more attention to how Kieslowski uses white in this film, after two viewings I still haven't made very good observations about the color symbolism. Perhaps it's just the nature of the color white, but I don't find it as noticeable as, say, red or blue. However, the instances in which Kieslowski uses white that I have noticed do seem to relate to moments when people attain equality: sharing the simple pleasure of sliding across a frozen lake on a sunny day, a wedding day, sex that reaches orgasm. The one tricky white object that I'm still mulling over is the statue that Karol brings with him to Poland. Obviously, the statue reminds him of Dominique and acts as her placeholder, and a reminder of Dominique for the audience, while they are in separate countries. Perhaps the statue is a representation of Dominique with which Karol has equality at that time? It doesn't matter that Karol can't communicate with or can't give pleasure to the statue because the statue cannot do those things for him either. And it won't ridicule him for his "deficiencies" as Dominique would.

Kieslowski also includes several images of voyeurism throughout the film, however the voyeurism seems more benign than its presentation in most films.

While I mean this comment as no disparagement to the film, White doesn't quite feel like it is part of Three Colors to me, probably because of its much lighter tone and male lead. The film also doesn't feel as tightly made as Red and Blue — sometimes it seems as though a scene or two has gone missing. However, White is certainly an enjoyable film with very fine performances by Zbigniew Zamachowski and Julie Delpy and, as is to be expected from Kieslowski, a unique presentation of a familiar concept.

Blue tells a powerful story of grief and loss through the experiences of Julie, a woman whose husband and daughter die in a car crash that she survives. Unable to kill herself, Julie decides to sell her house and all her possessions to move into an anonymous apartment. In Julie's case, liberty, which is represented by the color blue in the French flag, is a life free of the personal ties that have caused her so much emotional pain. She has enough money that she can afford not to work so that she may live simply, swimming for exercise, visiting her local coffee shop everyday for coffee and ice cream, sitting on a park bench and enjoying the sun. But Julie is still haunted by the emotional trauma inflicted by her family's death, which manifests as a song that she keeps hearing in her head, a song her husband was composing. Julie soon realizes that she cannot help but be affected by the people she encounters: her husband's colleague Olivier who has long harbored a crush on Julie, her troubled but caring neighbor who works in a local sex club, the young man who witnessed the car crash that killed her family, her husband's pregnant mistress, even the baby mice that she finds living her closet. By the end of the film, Julie has realized that the liberty she sought to protect herself is impossible, and she grudgingly lets these people into her heart.

Blue is pretty much a one-woman show. Sure, there are a couple other actors who turn in nice performances, but Blue belongs to Juliette Binoche. For a good portion of the film, Julie is not particularly likable as she distances herself from reminders of her family and from her friends; however, Binoche somehow makes Julie sympathetic, which keeps the audience involved, while simultaneously not trying too hard to win the audience's favor. When watching the film, Julie always seems barely restrained to me, seconds away from breaking down into sobs. Each little smirk seems to hold back an angry outburst or cruel remark. Blue has very little dialogue compared to other films of similar length, so it's really up to Binoche to convey a lot of emotion through facial expressions and body language.

Of the three films, Blue is probably the "artiest." Probably because of the limited dialogue, Kieslowski spends a lot of time creating images that mirror Julie's mental state. Some of the more memorable ones include the image of a doctor reflected in Julie's eye after the car wreck, a sugar cube absorbing coffee, and Julie's reflection in a spoon balanced in the mouth of a bottle. Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak has said in interviews that Julie was originally scripted as a runner, but Idziak suggested to Kieslowski that she swim instead because a swimming pool was more visually interesting for him to film. For Julie who is trying to disconnect from her emotions and human connections, swimming is the perfect form of exercise. Inside a pool Julie is effectively cushioned from the outside world, her senses dulled by the water.

Of course, Kiewslowski and Idziak liberally use the color blue throughout the film, but I think that its use is very specific. Most of the blue seems to be items that prevent Julie from achieving liberty, since that is the ultimate message of the film: the blue folder that contains photos of Patrice's mistress, the mobile that Julie takes from her daughter's room (which is also blue), the pen that Julie uses to compose music, the lollipop and wrapper that Julie finds in her purse. Kieslowski also fades to blue when Julie begins to hear the music in her head and when she has sex with Olivier.

Blue is definitely my favorite film of the Three Colors series and one of my favorite films that I have seen. Many critics prefer Red and probably consider it the superior film, which it may be. The script is certainly more multifaceted and it generates quite a few questions that it leaves for the audience to answer. However, while I consider Blue and Red equal in quality, I prefer Blue because of the simplicity of its story and its singular purpose in portraying a raw, compelling portrait of grief.

"Blue, liberty; White, equality; Red, fraternity... We looked very closely at these three ideas, how they functioned in everyday life, but from an individual's point of view. These ideals are contradictory with human nature. When you deal with them practically, you do not know how to live with them. Do people really want liberty, equality, fraternity?"
- Writer/director Krzysztof Kieslowski

The Three Colors trilogy, the finale to Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's career, explores the political ideas represented by the colors of the French flag: liberty (Blue), equality (White), and fraternity (Red). Kieslowski and his writing partner Krzysztof Piesiewicz examine these ideals in often ambiguous and ironic ways that may not be apparent unless the viewer knows the films' inspiration.

Kieslowski's films are complicated, and I use that word with both positive and negative connotations. I find something new and rewarding each time I watch these films because Kieslowski leaves a lot for the audience to decide for itself. However, that same quality can make his films a little inaccessible, especially in the case of Blue. I first saw the trilogy in college when I was trying to develop a more pretentious film repertoire, and Three Colors fit that order perfectly. Yes, these films are a little high concept, yes, they feature "arty directorial flairs", and, yes, they have subtitles. But these are powerful films with beautiful, rich palettes and stories that haven't been recycled more than a dozen times by some Hollywood moneymaking machine.

I hadn't watched these films in several years, but I felt like having my heart ripped out the other night, so I picked up Blue and then decided to watch the subsequent movies consecutively because I had never done that before. Viewing the films in this manner was an interesting experience but not a necessary one. Though called a trilogy, perhaps the word "cycle", often used to refer to Kieslowski's The Decalogue, best applies to the three films. Blue, White, and Red aren't a trilogy like The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy. White does not pick up where Blue leaves off, and the characters mostly remain segregated in their respective movies. The three films do connect, though the connection does not become apparent until the very end of the third film. Each film very easily stands on its own with a different theme, a particular setting, and a unique tone, but every viewing underscores the power and importance of human connection and a feeling of hope emerges.

...[Kieslowski and Piesiewicz] have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what's really going on rather than being told. They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.
- Director Stanley Kubrick