4K remastered Three Colours trilogy returns to cinemas

Three decades ago, Krzysztof Kieslowski wasn’t just a popular film quiz question (“How do you spell . . .?”) but also one of the world’s most lauded arthouse directors. Inspired by the ten commandments, the Polish director’s Dekalog won the 1991 BAFTA Award for Best International TV Series and spawned the multiple award-winning A Short Film About Killing.

For his next and, as it turned out, final major project, Kieslowski embarked on a trilogy of psychological dramas inspired by the virtues symbolised by the colours of the French tricolour (liberty, equality, fraternity). These proved a huge commercial and critical success, packing ’em in at arthouse cinemas around the world between 1993 and 1994. In Bristol, the trilogy was screened for weeks on end at the Watershed. Concluding episode Three Colours: Red was even nominated for three Oscars.

Now the three films have been given the full 4K restoration treatment with 5.1 surround sound and are returning to cinemas for a 30th anniversary victory lap.

Three Colours: Blue examines liberty or, more specifically, the restrictions placed on personal freedom by our attachments to others. Juliette Binoche is married to a famous composer who perishes in a car accident with the couple’s daughter during the opening credits. She then half-heartedly attempts suicide and opts for a life of aimless austerity, cut off from her privileged past in a rat-infested flat with only a local prostitute for company. But every so often she suffers from portentous attacks of Dramatic Chords when she’s reminded of him, eventually chancing upon the truth about his secret double life. This overly schematic, meandering, psychologically unconvincing and clumsily coincidence-driven plot is partly redeemed by a deeply emotional performance from Binoche.

Three Colours: White is offered as a comedy on the theme of equality. Nerdy Polish hairdresser Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is divorced by his vindictive French wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) for being unable to get it up and finds himself flung him out on the streets of Paris. Eventually, he returns to his brother’s house and sets about becoming a rich, successful businessman in his newly entrepreneurial homeland . . . . You might not laugh much, but there’s a beautifully crafted symmetry to this ingeniously plotted, almost wholly implausible tale. The usual stuff is there too – irritatingly unexplained plot developments, dramatic chords bursting onto the soundtrack at meaningful moments, arty fade-outs – though it doesn’t dominate as much as it did in Blue.

Something of a disappointment after the edgy, sardonic pessimism of White, Three Colours: Red begins once again with a web of coincidence. A young Swiss woman (Irene Jacob) accidentally runs over an embittered former judge’s dog, and is shocked to discover that the judge now spends his time eavesdropping on his neighbour’s telephone conversations in a misguided attempt to fathom those mysteries of the human condition that still elude him after years on the bench. During the first half-hour or so it feels as if nothing will gel, but one’s patience is rewarded later, as the various strands of the story are woven together and we begin to see echoes of the past in the present. As always, Kieslowski pays incredible attention to the minutiae of people’s everyday lives, while a typically fatalistic coda brings together characters from this and earlier parts of the trilogy.

The Watershed is Showing Blue from March 31-April 6, White from April 7-13 and Red from April 14-20. Go here for more information and ticket links. Over at the Cube, you can see Blue on Tue 11 April, White on Sun 16 April and Red on Wed 26 April. Go here for details.

Main image from Three Colours: Red: Curzon Artificial Eye