What Are You Watching?

70: Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, Red

September 08, 2022 Alex Withrow & Nick Dostal
What Are You Watching?
70: Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, Red
Show Notes Transcript

"Three Colors: Blue" (starring Juliette Binoche), "Three Colors: White" (starring Julie Delpy), and "Three Colors: Red" (starring Irène Jacob) are three of the best films released in the 1990s. Polish filmmaker, Krzysztof Kieślowski, made this groundbreaking trilogy that should be seen by any fan of cinema. Alex and Nick spend 90 minutes trying to convince you why.
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Hey, everyone, welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex. We're throwing. I'm joined by my best man, nick dostal. How are you doing? There Zbigniew Zamachowski. I tried. I picked the most difficult name i could find. Isn't that the star of weight, general? Yeah, it's Carol. Carol. I love that guy. That's amazing. To answer your question. I have excited to be here. Oh, yeah. Today we are doing something. I mean, we're we're really giddy. We're really excited to talk about the Three Colors trilogy. What the hell is this? In the early 1990s, famed Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kozlowski. I apologize in advance for any mispronounced versions of words here. We're going to be throwing out a lot of Polish names. We'll do our best. But Kozlowski set out to make three thematically similar films that were narratives loosely connected Blue, White and Red subsequently came out in 1993 and 1994, and they were smashes of European arthouse cinema to the point where they crossed over to America and garnered considerable acclaim. Red was nominated for Oscars, including Best Director. These films are a God deeply personal, unique, poetic, in a way that only cinema really can be. They're compelling, and they are just all around masterful. We're going to get into each movie. We're going to talk about Kozlowski. I'm going to put all of this into context, but really high level. This is your first experience with the Three Colors trilogy. I got into these in college, but tell me how your past few weeks have been before we dove in. Dude, I am obsessed. I am obsessed. Oh, yeah. I cannot even, like, really express the level of mental energy that I have given to my day to day life. I feel like my days have been ruled in thoughts and and my imagination is just stirred because of these movies. Yes. The reason why we did this is that Kozlowski is somebody that we have talked about doing a pot episode for for quite a bit. But from the beginning. From the beginning, yeah. And we played around with the Decalogue, but it just didn't take off. But the Lincoln Center in New York decided to do a screening throughout the month of August of a 4K restoration of the Janis versions of these films and release it all throughout the month. And subsequently L.A. did the same thing, and then where you live did the same thing. So DC Yep. So it kind of went across the country. And so by the time that this comes out, these movies probably will not be playing in theaters. But this was the spark that ignited our reasoning for tackling anything by Kieslowski. And I can't even think of a better way to do this than by talking about the three colors. Yeah, I mean, the fact being a fan of cinema and I understand that a lot of people perhaps listening to this may not know who were talking about this director or these movies. That's what that's what this podcast episode is for. We're not going to spoil any of these movies. They're not going to spoil the end. But we would not be talking about these if we didn't firmly believe that any fan of movies would get supreme satisfaction out of watching these. They you. There's so many different reasons why and we'll get to all those. But yes, the jumping off point for us was that it was a treat as a diehard fan of cinema to be able to see these in the movie theater in 4K, they looked stunning. You did it to where you saw once a week, you basically went like every Wednesday for three weeks. Yeah, which is great because you're able to digest them. You had not seen them. So you have a week to process blue then white and red. I had seen them. I actually own them on DVD, but I was out of the country for a little bit and they were only playing at one theater in DC for a week. So when I came back that the Saturday I was back, that was my three colors that I saw was noon, two and four, and there were a few of us in there doing it and we were just in it together. Like some there were, you know, it started with blue at noon and that didn't have as many people. There are a few more people in white, and then there were quite a few people in red. And by the time you reach the conclusion of red, it is going to hit you differently. If Red is the only film you're watching of this. Yes, there were some I'm not going to explain what happens. We can skirt around it, but there were some very, very confused faces. Why? Yeah, they were seeing certain people in the end. So yeah, I definitely think these movies should be consumed in the order they were presented to us. But it's been a blast. It was a blast to be able to spend, in my case one day seeing all them and just being in all. And I'm like, I'm just so glad that movie theaters are playing older movies now. Like more and more movie theaters. It's really, really cool, and it gives people an opportunity, in my case, to rediscover these and fall even more in love with them. Because these movies have gotten so much better as I have aged, or people like you who love movies. And even though you do have a subscription to HBO, Max, which all these are on and you do have a subscription to the Criterion Channel, which these are all on, there is nothing like seeing these in the theater and it was just it was so, so cool. So that's definitely informing our experience today. Yeah, since I've seen these movies, I have been really reinvigorated by film and the language that it can speak because. Koslowski I think that's something that we're going to talk about a lot, is that he has a language of cinema that only cinema can do. You said it when we started it. Yet these past weeks have really inspired me in a brand new way that is very, very refreshing and I think sorely needed for me creatively. So that's just a little personal bit that I wanted to share as a result of this director. And I'm so glad we're talking about him. Yeah, and it's so nice to hear that that's been happening for you. That was my exact reaction to him in his work when I discovered him in college, because we're going to we're going to get to a lot of this. And I actually had to save for later. But if I had to make, you know, a hierarchy or list of the most influential directors on my own personal work, Kozlowski's in the top five because Blu, which is the movie in this trilogy we're going to talk about first, there is a direct 1 to 1 correlation. If you watched that movie and then go watch some of my work and I'm not yeah, I would I was not stealing at all. But it was a huge inspiration even to the way I color corrected some of my films to give them blue hues and just, Oh my God, the way he examines grief, the way he examines duality, the way he examines longing, this in isolation. Where do we all fit? What's our role? What's our place? Is all of this a coincidence? Is all it or is it all up to fate? He captures things that are really hard. This is kind of the biggest challenge of this podcast. Yeah. Things that are very hard to articulate verbally. Yes. And that's why there are long passages in his films of extreme closeup when you're like, Why am I watching a sugar cube dissolve in coffee for 5 seconds and when you lock into his language and into his world, he's really just redefining the way the convention of how we even accept and tolerate a movie. Yeah, and this is not to say these movies are, like, difficult to follow. Some of them have mystical elements, but they're very easy to digest. They're all about 90 minutes long. They are in various languages, none of which are English. So you will have to read, but they're not like hard to follow. They're not going to lose you. I know I would classify them as arthouse cinema, but it's not like avant garde, weird, obscure. They all have people, most likely that most fans of cinema will know one them, you know, stars Julie Delpy, Juliette Binoche, I mean, yeah, famous people. So there isn't anything out of the box in terms of abstract, like Lynch, for example, right? Perfect example of an American filmmaker who makes his movies and we don't understand what they are. Yeah, they're pretty open to that kind of dreamlike interpretation. Kieslowski is not going to lose you like that. No. He you know, his narratives are straightforward, but what he communicates is on a different level of existence. It's a different plane, it's a different atmosphere, stratosphere, whatever you want to call it. No one does this like him. He's he's mind boggling. Roger Ebert was a huge champion of Kozlowski and is the sole reason I discover this director, because I became you know, I wanted to read all of Ebert's great movies. I've got that book, and this was a huge part of it. So I just I went down this rabbit hole because this is exactly how Ebert talked about him as well. All the stuff we're saying, because Lawsky was really interested in tapping into all of the viewer's senses, do you know, not just what we hear and what we see, but he wanted to show you things that you could like feel and that if necessary, you could taste. Or he wanted to put you in situations that had so much atmosphere. Before we get into the trilogy, I do want to talk about his career because I have seen all of his movies. I just want to give a little context to how he arrived at Three Colors, because this is how he ended his career. He passed away very shortly after Red was released and Red was announces his last film. He was going into retirement and he did not get to enjoy retirement long because he passed away from complications of a heart attack. Two years after Red was released. So to jump into Kozlowski's career really quick, he started out making a lot of documentaries and shorts in Poland, and he gets a little fed up with documentaries and realizes and announces at some point that going to narrative fictional filmmaking is going to be it's going to be easier to get to the truth that way because he was he was having to go through so much red tape and bureaucracy in communist Poland to make his documentaries. So a number of his early films break down the governmental societal conventions that limit Poland. I guess I will say so like the scar is about how government dimwits run a small town into the ground because they want to build a chemical factory there, which may not even work. So it's kind of a comedy and it's a movie that's very critical of the government, which I get he couldn't really do in documentary form, at least not without probably facing serious repercussion. And the scar also shows how when the government, you know, messes up, it's often blamed on a few relatively innocent people. The calm which was made the same year 1976. It's about a guy trying to integrate back into society after being in prison for three years. It's only 70 minutes long and it's really a character study about trying to find your peace in your circumstance. But again, we're talking about societal restraints, governmental restraints. That's really what he's interested in now. Camera buff in 1979, this is really, really cool. This is about a guy, the same guy from the Calm Jersey store who's been in just a ton of his work. This is about a guy who gets an eight millimeter film camera and he becomes obsessed with it and he starts booking all these short documentary filmmaking jobs from his government, communist bosses. And they're like, okay, now we want you to do this. Now we want you to do this. And while his career is taking off and his skill set is taking off, his personal life is in absolute shambles. And I think Kozlowski always kind of in these early films, had a way of mirroring his personal life. But but the end of camera above is really, really cool and something you won't, you know, forget. For fans or subscribers to the Criterion Channel, if you watch the Safdie brothers, they have an interview where they talk very, very specifically about that movie. And it's one of the most interesting points of view I've ever heard. Directors talk about another movie. Yeah, because it's like, what if you get he gets this toy, this device, because he wants to and he's really happy to have it. And then immediately everyone around him, like he works for the government, all of his bosses are like, Well, you're the only person with a camera in town, so just start doing this stuff for us. And he admittedly to start with, doesn't even make good movies, but they get like all this film festival acclaim and there are people at the festivals being like, This is a sham, these movies suck, but because they're about the government and it's in a Communist Party there, it keeps getting more and more famous. It's really it's kind of a tragic comedy. KOZLOWSKI Like he talks about such serious themes. But all these movies have these, like, hidden bits of humor. They kind of latch out. You're like, oh, shit. It's very dry and sometimes very dark. But it's always I don't know, it's just always really fun to watch. No end in 1985. This one's important because this is his first collaboration with Christophe Praise Whiskey, who I'm going to talk about a little bit later. But he became Kozlowski's closest collaborator, helping write the Three Colors trilogy, The Decalogue. But No End is about martial law in Poland. In the early 1980s and also about a woman trying to overcome the grief of losing her husband. A theme. We're going to get back to Blind Chance in 1987. Nick, you would fucking love this movie. Three stories told in succession. It's all about like a guy trying to run after a train. And the outcome of that, how it could change his life, you know, blind chance. So, yes, yes. So here I love it. You love these stories. And I knew it was here's another selling point. It was banned in Poland when it was released five years. Yeah. So that's a that should be some sort of indication to go check it out. Okay. A lot of unless you're honestly a really, really hard core criterion buff and you've been on the channel, which is where I saw all those maybe you haven't seen or heard of some of those, but now we go to 1988 Decalogue. Okay, they're great. Oh, my God. This is one of the most masterful things ever committed to cinema. It the biggest flaw it has is that it was always an impossible to market because it's 10 hours long. And how are you going to show that theatrically? The way I saw all these way back in the day, I don't remember what app it was, but some streaming app had this like way back when back way back when Netflix first started streaming, they actually had like a lot of Bergman's and a lot of this stuff. So I may have even seen them on there, but now of course, I own the amazing criterion Blu ray package and Decalogue is ten chapters each, about 50 minutes. Some are a little longer. They all take place in and around one housing project in Poland. And each chapter is loosely and I do emphasize that loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments. And you have not seen anything else like this, like no one has. It's so unique and so specific. Two of the movies, Decalogue five he released into an 80 minute feature length film, a short film about Killing and Decalogue six, a short film about love. So it's cool to watch both versions of those. But one of the craziest things is he shot this whole thing for $100,000 like this. This no insane. This is some of the. Most masterful. Poetic. Content I've ever seen in a movie. It's like each chapter cost you ten grand. I did. I don't. I don't know. I just don't get it. I just have to say, to promote that particular Decalogue movie series, whatever you want, it kind of classified. It's really unto its own self. Yeah. The very first chapter. Oof I, I've thought about this a lot since I've seen it. I do not. There's a moment and I'm not going to say what is would be too much because you also can't really communicate it either. But there's a moment at the end of that movie or that series, that chapter, that commandment that I think is the most influential moment of cinema I've ever seen. Oh, Christ, I love to hear you say that for a few reasons. One, and this can happen, it's not a bad thing. You, I think, have only seen like those first four. I've seen the first five. Yeah, five. Okay. First five. And we we're definitely going to do Decalogue at some point. We're going to see how people received this Three Colors episode. But we're in it maybe, but it's something that's really important to break down. And I've even explained what Decalogue is about, like to my dad or to a few friends, and they're like, Hmm, I wanted to check that out. And the first chapter is, it's just not the best of the series, you know, there are other ones. So yeah. So that's cool because I still love it. I love them all. I wouldn't even go about like ranking them. That would be futile. But it's, it's cool that you say that in a chapter that usually isn't even regarded as like the best one, but it's still amazing. Oh, God. So Decalogue that launches him into international acclaim, it gets the attention of a lot of people and it allows him to start making movies for bigger budgets. And you see that in the way these movies look because The Decalogue isn't like it's not shot on. Like maybe the nicest of cameras doesn't look all lush and everything, but you get to the double life of Veronique in 1991, starring Irene Jacob, who is the star of Red. And in this film she plays two characters. One is a Polish choir singer and the other is a French music teacher. And they exist in the same world, but they don't appear to be aware of each other. And it's like, are they the same person or is this an exploration and identity and human connection? And Kozlowski loved this type of stuff. He had a lot of themes like doppelgangers, identity. He's not necessarily going to explain every little thing, but he was someone who was very interested in those little coincidences in life. Like, you ever crossed someone in the street and made eye contact with them? And you just know for certain you've met them before. Yes, aware. And maybe you turn around and they're looking at you and doing the same thing and you're like, what the fuck? Like who? And it's like, do I stop or do I just keep going? He has made movies about that. Like, Yeah, that's exactly what he's done. That that's the type of filmmaker he is. But just because I know they're not in English, it doesn't mean they're not hard to digest. He envelops you into his world, and there's nothing about these that are like, Oh my God, it's so horrific. Like, I can't watch. It's not like that at all. He's just really interested in human connection, even if getting there is via isolation, which may not make sense. Saying aloud. But it does in his movies. It does in his movies. There's a direct quote that I took from him just to try to reverberate his themes of why he's obsessed, because I think that's what we all do is filmmakers, we have shit about life that we can't actually understand or explain. So we do our best to put those questions that we need answered for ourselves into the movies. Yeah, he says this one thing different people in different places in the world and for different reasons at the same time think the same thing. This theme is an obsession of mine. Yeah, that's exactly what the double life of Veronique is about. Yeah. Great fucking quote. You would love that movie too, by the way. I love everything this man does. Yeah. Yeah, you would. That's a great quote, though, that puts into context his last three films, which are the subject of our conversation today, Three Colors Blue, which comes out in 1993, three colors, white in 1994, and three colors red also in 1994. We're going to get to all of these, of course. But he announces before three colors red comes out that this is my I'm done after this. This is it. I'm going to retire. I want to sit around and read and smoke. That's what he said. Yeah. He was a lifelong, dedicated chain smoker, and he died at the age of 54 from, as I said, complications from a heart attack just two years after red was released, which is always, you know, of course, a shame. But, God, you just wonder what else he would have made. It's crazy because he announced the retirement. Yeah. And then it's done. So it's like we knew this is what it's going to end. But ending with Decalogue Double Life of Veronique and these three movies, that is one of the strongest just sections of anyone's career in the history of movies. It is some of the most influential filmmaking in the fact that he made them all in a row is just astounding. Oh, man. And before we really launch into any of these, one thing I think we suppose, I suppose we should kind of say about these movies is that, yes, like we talked about before, like they are a straightforward narrative. But to get everything that he's giving you, you do need to open your mind up a little bit as to examining a little bit more than than just what's on the screen, if that makes any sense. Oh, no, no, no. I'm laughing because what you're saying is you have to watch these and throw away the conventions of American. Yeah, there we go. Where everything is explained, act one, act two, act three, you know, Act one introduction. Then we introduce a conflict and then in act three, we resolve that conflict. Even if that resolution is sad or if it's happy. That's the way most American movies are made. European filmmakers were never really interested in that, hence the French New Wave, where they just completely abandoned it. But it's always been that way. I'm not saying three act structure is an inherently American thing. They are the ones that rely on it the most. And yes, Polish cinema, French cinema, Swedish, some of them do. Some of those great films do have structures, but it's much, much more about character and story as opposed to plot. That's that's what I was trying to say. It took me a while to get there. American filmmaking is all about plot. What is driving that plot? Yeah. In my experience, in many number of European films I've seen, it's often about character and story and theme, but not really like how? How are we getting there? What's the big thing they have to overcome? It's not that black and white, and. Something that the acting world knows a lot about is a word called choices. And I think that is something that defines Kozlowski's language in a lot of ways, like the choices that his characters make and then the consequences that follow. Yeah, a few collaborators I'm going to mention because we're going to get to them as we go. I'm going to start referring to him as Christoph P, because that last stuff. Thank you. Thank you. But he was a trial lawyer who, according to Kozlowski, could not write, but he could talk. So they would sit together and Christoph, he would just talk and talk about these stories. And they came up with these scripts with no end with Decalogue, Véronique Blue, white and red. Oh, my God. It's just it's incredible that they found each other and that they found a way to collaborate in a way that made sense to them. And that's why we he is you have to mention his name because yeah. Is in part responsible for helping these films be what they are. Jerzy Stewart, who I mentioned, he was like the Al Rubin or the Seymour Cassel to Cassavetes. He plays he actually plays the brother in white. And he was a huge collaborator. He was in so many of Kozlowski's movies. He wrote a few. So I want to mention him because he's great. And then by way of mentioning collaborators, this is I've never heard of anything like this from a director this good I have never, ever heard of this. Kozlowski insisted on and almost always worked with a different cinematographer. Every movie Blue, White and Red has a different cinematographer. The Decalogue has nine cinematographers. One of them shot two of the chapters. And he is responsible for, I believe it's white. It's just it's wild that he was so interested in the actual visual look that so many different people could bring because, you know. Bergman and again. Bergman pods come in. But Sven Nyquist, I mean, they did all their best work together. It was the same two guys lending that stuff and lighting that. It's just it's crazy to think about. So I want to mention all that because when mentioning a director like this, I like to go into their collaborators as well. And that different cinematographer thing is wild. That is really cool too, though. Yes. Yeah. That's a commitment to a different aspect of your vision than anything else, because most directors, when they find their deep, it's like, Alright, this is a relationship, this is a dynamic that is not going anywhere. I want all my movies to look like this because it makes sense. Yeah, of course. You found the person that sees the movie in your head and they can actually put that out there. Yeah. So to consciously be like, nope, I wanted someone else, someone else, someone else that's really cool. It is. It is. I did just think of an American director who used to do that all the time. The director of Annie Hall, you know, well, I would talk about him a lot, but yeah, he did that. He did that a lot. He'd work in like usually in chunks. Like it's, you know, I probably won't even include that. Jesus, Roger Ebert. I got to mention him here because he was largely responsible for getting me into probably every major foreign director I discovered. And I had heard of these people, but reading his reviews and hearing his praise, he listed this trilogy, Blue, White and Red, as his top as his fifth favorite film of the nineties. I know that's a bit of a cheat, but you know, it's still really cool. And when I see that, I'm like, okay, I'm definitely going to watch Roger Ebert's top ten of the nineties, the ones I haven't seen. And it's for good reason because again, thematically, I've never seen anything like this. Blue very loosely represents liberty. White very loosely represents equality in red, very loosely represents fraternity. These are the colors of the French flag. And again, this isn't like when you hear Decalogue commandments. It is not like thou shall not kill that. If you know that looking at it, you're like, Oh, I get that here. But it's not. It's this is not a man who worked in black and white, despite that being one of those being the title of the second movie, he was a guy who lived in the gray. He just had a magnificent poetic brush in terms of displaying that gray to us. So we are going to start with blue, but we've kind of done this as we've gone. I just wanted to ask you, as someone who is relatively new to Kozlowski's world, is there any advice you want to give people before we start explaining these films here? Any additional advice? I feel like this would be a great way to kind of maybe open up the the way that we're about to talk about the movies or even just the opening of Blue in general, because I feel like that's the biggest test. Yeah. If you can just watch the opening scene of Blue and be open to a lot of what's actually there and what's not there, I feel like you have entered into the world and now you can you can be present for the language. But I feel like a way to do that would be reiterating Roger Ebert's, quote, go for it. You can cut this out if you want. No, go for it. So this is the article that you sent me and you told me that this is required reading before we read the part. Roger Ebert's Three Colors trilogy, great reviews like great movie reviews. He had that series. Yeah. And this is just a personal story from him that this is the reason why we do this podcast is because of exactly stories like this. And he says, I connect strongly with Kieslowski because I sometimes seek a whiff of transcendence by revisiting places from earlier years. I'm thinking now of a cafe in Venice, a low cliff overlooking the sea near Donegal, a bookstore in Cape Town, and Sir John Stones Breakfast Room in London. I'm drawn to them in the spirit of pilgrimage. No one else can see the shadows of my former and future visits there or know how they are. Touchstones in my mortality. But if someday, as I approached the cafe, I see myself just getting up to leave. I will not be surprised to have missed myself by so little. Where we've gone, where we've been. Yes, exactly. I mean, there are so many different places that hold so much resonance to me that other people, it just, you know, it means nothing to them and that's fine. But that's what life is all about. That's what individualize is life for all of us. And that is what Kieslowski communicates in his movies that no one else can do as well as him. And I'm I'm okay with saying that. Okay. Let's get into three colors. Blue here, plot. The plots of these movies are not like the selling point, but this is I'm going to go quickly. We're in Paris. There's a car accident. A famous composer and his daughter are killed. And the wife's mother, Julie, played by Juliette Binoche, is the only survivor after this tragedy, she attempts to block off any human connection in her life. She essentially grieves. Any fans of this podcast know that I love movies about watching people grieving and trying to get away. Tragedy, really. Every single movie I have made is about this exact subject. This is largely thanks to Three Colors Blue. This is one of the top five most influential movies of my filmmaking. There is no question. I was just it's ties into our last episode, but I was in tears watching this in the theater, just being reminded of like, Oh my God, I forgot how full of life this thing is to me and how I've borrowed so many themes. It introduced me into my own work. As we mentioned. I think the main theme of this film is liberty in a sense, or what Roger Ebert dubbed as an anti tragedy. I think a service level question that I myself had and a lot of people had is how is Blue going to be incorporated into this? How is white going to be incorporated and other? How is red and to the other? And it does matter in each film, but he's not necessarily pounding it down our heads. He's doing it in a way where it's really drawing out the character. So like in this film, there's always light being reflected off of her face. There's like light from that, you know, dangling mobile chandelier thing. There's the swimming pool, it's reflecting off of her. And we're always watching her kind of like in these moments of grief. And did you notice that blue lollipop that she consumes so quickly, which that's like what in movie. Made you do in a movie with cake. Yeah. Yeah. That. Oh wow. I didn't put together that. That was that. And her daughter's eating a lollipop in the beginning of the movie. That's the rapper out of the window. Yeah. All right, so this is a perfect example of of the way that Kieslowski uses objects. Yes, he uses objects throughout all of his storytelling. And there is they mean as much as you want them to me. You can look at that and you can just watch a woman wolfing down a sucker. But to me, I took that as like that's the she's trying to close off everything. Yes. Of this tragedy. This happened to her. And there is a remaining sucker from her daughter, her. It's the last thing that her senses can have of her. She's going to ravenously eat it because she wants to have that last moment, but then she wants it to be. Gone, gone, isolated. Get out. And that fast, the only way out is through. Now, there's nothing literal about that. That's just the way that I took it. Someone else could have a different opinion on it and it's each one's valid. But the fact that he's able to communicate some type of deeper, suggesting a deeper idea or notion about this character, this object in what this character is going through with it is what he does superbly. Yeah, let's use the lollipop as a launching point, because I think your read is correct. I think she's consuming it so quickly because then it's a part of her. But it is gone and that's what she's doing. Yeah, she's trying to erase. It's almost like she's trying to forget that these people even existed. You know, she's changing. She's moving houses, she's throwing shit away. She still is her bitch. I mean, she moves cities. She's just she's going she's trying to isolate herself as a way to kind of, like, outrun the grief. Like, if I do all this, if I bury this, then I am not going to, you know, be sad. I'll just be I'll just be someone else. Whatever it is. Again, none of this is communicated like via dialog. This is all long passages of watching her in a way that it's always compelling. This is genuinely one of my this is like one of my top ten favorite performances in all the film. Juliette Binoche in this. She's incredible and just miraculous. Yeah. And watching her realize that life ain't that simple. You really you can't really outrun grief because it can catch up with you. And we've seen a lot of movies where people are trying to dilute the grief with drugs, alcohol. This isn't that this is far more emotional. This is just trying to welcome this deep sense of isolation as your new normal, but then realizing, is there still shit to do here? Because when I said her famous composer, her husband was killed in a car accident. This is an extremely famous composer who's conducting a symphony when he dies. He was in the middle of conducting a symphony. And Julie's a musician as well and has some insight into it. So it becomes this thing of like, should she should she just burn this fucker, just burn this symphony or should she help? There's all these things being brought up and it's one of the best ways on film that I've ever seen someone respond to grief. And I'm not even going to say like where it all goes. But there are certain moments of emotional violence. There's certain moments of somewhat physical violence that are just so jarring. It's like dragging knuckles across a fucking concrete rock wall. It's like, Oh God, yeah, we all know what that would feel like. One of the most interesting things about the isolation part of this is like she's trying to isolate herself, but the more that she does that, the more the world does not let her. Okay. Yes, it's an absolutely perfect way to it, including a guy who was a friend of her husband's and a friend of hers who who announces that, you know, I'm not really okay with you just not being in my life and just disappear. Yeah. I want to be your friend. I want to be in your life. But yes, yes. Great way to put it. And the idea of liberty in that way is that this woman is trying to she is living free. She is she has said goodbye to everything about her life. I don't even know what she's trying to do. She is trying to outrun, but she's not. I don't think she knows what she's trying to do either. It's something where you just. Know she needs to get. Out. Yeah. Everything gets distilled down to like, oh, now there's someone potentially like breaking into my apartment complex. So let's just focus on this one thing, you know, now there's I have baby mice in my apartment, so let's just focus on this one, too. It all just kind of gets distilled down. Yeah. There's no grand plan about anything just to escape and isolate. Yeah. And so I want to talk about that apartment scene really quick, but to finish this idea that the world isn't letting her isolate, you've got yes. This guy that won't let her go and is going to great lengths to find her when he doesn't know where she is. And then you've got the woman that she meets that just ends up becoming a friend. But a friend that she didn't ask for. But the most poetic thing that's coming into her life that won't leave her alone is the music. Oh, my God. The music is the callback to unfinished business. Yes. Or to what ultimately might be like your calling. Yes. You know, from it, she made. It to finish this grand yet that her husband was close. And yes, that's the music specifically we're referring to. Yeah, that's the music specifically. And when that music chooses to come in, when she listens to it, when she runs away from it. This is my other favorite moment of the whole entire movie. This isn't a spoiler. When you're taught how to write a script, you have to get from point A to point B. Something has to happen in order for you to meet this new character. Kieslowski makes these connections in the most wonderful of ways that I've ever seen put to cinema. So she's just up on night because she can't sleep, and she overhears this commotion outside. It looks out the window and sees this guy beaten, beaten to death. But he's getting his ass kicked in the street for we don't know who this guy is. We don't know who these people are. This guy runs into her apartment building looking for help and starts knocking on every single door and in this through sound, through just this overall thing. But this is very compelling for reasons that it's just because this is a life moment, right? Like, holy shit, what would I do? What's going to happen? What is she going to do? Ultimately, this all plays out in a way that we can just meet this one character that's going to come into her life. And it's not even the guy that's being beat. No, no. It's just all a circumstance of how she needs to meet that friend. It is Kozlowski's fixation with relationships between actions and their consequences. I always think of like, what's the most interesting way to connect? If I need to get here, how do we do it? It can be something that has nothing to do with anything, right? He is an absolute triumph in doing this cause he does this in every single one of his movies. Yeah, it's. A little a little misdirect, but sometimes it can take, like, a big random event in life. And, yeah, maybe you meet someone who is just experiencing that as well, and then that means that makes you friends all the sudden it's really. And then going back to the music, oh my God, the music is almost it's like a character in the film because yeah, I've never seen this in a movie before since I've never seen this. And I, it's going to be difficult to describe this. I'm going to try, but it's so much cooler just to see in the movie. She will be sitting there sometimes. Julie, the character just forlorn, staring, maybe smoking, and all of the sudden, out of nowhere, blue like the color blue will be superimposed on the screen in this orchestral music will just yeah, boom alive. It'll fucking boom. And she, like, jumps as if she can hear it. Yeah. And at first. You're like, what is this? And then often after this, or when she's making a big realization, it happens four times in the movie. The movie will just fucking fade to black in the middle of a shot with the music playing. And then it fades up in the same. And it's like it's these realizations that she's having of like she's hearing this music in her head and she's so overcome with emotion. I felt that in real life where you just get like a jolt of something and you're like, Oh my God. Like whether you hear her donor, whether you're watching the movie or not, I'll just get a scene or a shot from a movie in my head and just get jolted. I've never seen that communicated in a movie before that just where the camera moves in this blues on screen in this, oh my God. And the music just swells up. It's really it's just pure Kozlowski. That's the only way I can put it. And that's why we keep repeating this name, because we really want we're really urging people just to give these a shot. Even sometimes in this, when she's talking to people, there's like really harsh black vignettes at the top of the screen. Yeah, down encroaching her. Soderbergh did that exact same thing in the opening scenes of Solaris. He's doing that to George Clooney. Like there are, there are influences. You may not know who Kozlowski is, but I guarantee you have seen his influence. If you are a fan of movies from like the mid-nineties on for sure. There's a moment that I really love in that way because it's something that it doesn't happen throughout. The rest of the movie is when she overhears the homeless guy on the flute playing what sounds like one of her songs. One of her from the symphony. And it's like, How the hell can you know that? Yeah, she approaches him because she is off after a scene where she is dismissed. Someone trying to make an attempt to come into her life. Yes. Well, so. Her only thing that matters is confronting this music. And she walks up to the homeless guy and she just kind of like bends down and puts her head into frame and directly asks the guy where, you know, this music to me I receive that is like, this is the character demanding an answer. I'm trying to get away from all of this. How do you know this? Yeah, this doesn't make any sense. Yes, that's a that's a I was trying to figure out how to articulate this as well. Yeah, exactly. It's like you're trying to run away and then someone just holds up a wanted poster of you and you're like, Wait a minute, where the hell do you get my image from? Yeah, yeah. And and she's very direct in certain moments throughout the movie. But this was the one where it to me, it just felt like it was the most aggressive in a pursuit of an objective. And then he just basically says, like, I think of these things. There's, you know. Random. Yeah, yeah. And then she just takes that response and then walks right. That's a theme of his work. Is that random? Yes. Is it random or is just how do we meet the people we meet? What is the circumstance since it's based on there are a lot of other themes in blue that honestly, again, it's difficult to articulate, but how he, especially in the beginning, is trapping her in circular images, even like the circular image of the tire. And then she's like, Look, you're looking through all that like poster board of her how we're always seeing her through glass, through her reflection. It's just kind of we have that distance from her again. Juliette Binoche, in this if you haven't gone back this far in her career, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It just one of the top performances to inform how I direct actors in certain work like I'm I have with specific characters tried to direct them in a way to get something out of them. That is similar of what Juliette Binoche does in this. It's my by far my favorite work of her career, and I think she's had an amazing career. But this is like this is right up there with one of my favorite performances ever. Oh, man. I mean, and rightfully so. She's incredible. And then I love the it's almost like a of Emmanuelle Riva as her mom, who again, we're always seeing through glass, always seeing through reflections. She was she of course, broke through and Hiroshima, me and more and then go to the tail end of her career when she was in a more which she should have won the Oscar for. But oh my God, she's so good. And Michael had to keep some more. But I loved her as a mom. That's kind of what I mean. When we started the episode, it's like there's things about these movies that I have not let go of. Oh, absolutely. The best of ways. Yeah. That's her reaction to closing a door after she's let a cat in her apartment. I'll never forget that reaction, just playing it off her. I've seen a lot of swimming pools and movies. I've never seen one look like this. And where to where? Like each swimming scene she has is informing where she is at emotionally. There are so many things about these movies, just the tires in the beginning that's spinning. I mean, I love so much how we got to move on. I mean, we could do a whole lot of but we're going to go to white. But I thought it would be fun to pair each of these movies with hopefully a movie that more people have seen. It doesn't have to be an American film. We I tried I was going to do all American films. It is strictly American ones, but it was kind of hard to find American counterpoints for some of these movies. But hopefully you pick something that is a little more familiar in the culture because I don't know how many people have heard of three colors blue. But if you had to pair it with a slightly more well-known movie, what would you choose? This is why this would be the most like an awful double. Feature, but maybe the most amazing. So I would pair blue. With 21 grams. What the. Fuck? That's what I have. I swear to God. I swear to God, dude, the way the fucking kid. Gardner. When he hears the accident. In 21 grams and he runs we on him. He sees the car zoomed by and then he drops the leaf blower, I think, and runs that's in here. That skateboard. That's exactly it. The thing you said with the lollipop holding on to things, that's in 21 grams with the shoelaces like that. And there is there's such an obvious correlation to me with Emirates, Pedro's 21 Grams and Babel making a sort of like unofficial death trilogy to this trilogy to three colors. Fuck, that is awesome. I can not believe that. Oh, my God. Yeah. 21 grams. It just like it took me a while to get there, and then it jumped out and I went, Oh, there's so much like I would say 21 grams is, you know, a more it's a it's a raw version. Yes, yes. Down to the bone rust. There is actually another movie I considered here, but yeah, the Naomi Watts, Juliette Binoche, you know, they were made like ten years apart. There's there's some correlation here. Oh, but I can't. I just took it over, but fuck, that's so cool. Tell me why. Tell me why. Well, I mean, for really all the reasons that you're talking about. I just took my bed. It's just like there's an examination of the grief process because there's something poetic, because in 21 grams, I mean, basically, what it is, is that Naomi Watts, his family, dies in a car crash. And the there's a heart transplant from her husband given to another person. And somehow this heart finds its way back to Naomi Watts. And I think that is just one of the most in is such a sad, tragic and weird, disturbing way with the romantic things I've ever heard. There's something there. I mean. I mean, all of kieslowski's a poetic experience, but there's something about that poetic ism just from that idea that that links itself to this for me. And I think that's kind of what it is. And then, of course, you know, the level of grief and what that means, but I think that's the biggest one. Yeah, I love that. And when I read that list, they keep referencing that Juliette Binoche is on for Blue like my favorite performances. Naomi Watts from 21 Grams Same. Yes. And there is there's a reason for it. And I've even talked about like this is what I'm looking for in certain performances. Naomi Watts, one grams blue is right there with it. This is well, I cannot believe that we had the same thing. I was like, so you're about to see about to say that because. What if we have the same for all. Three? Oh, I actually thought you might have might read, I don't know, white lights kind of a I don't know. I thought my white was really good too. And it's a popular movie, so. Oh, fuck. So is mine is going to be funny. Oh, boy. We're just having a great time here. Let's move on to the second film in this trilogy, Three Colors, White Men, 1994. This one is let's be let's be brief here. This is about a man and a woman who have been recently married, but she now wants a divorce because the man is impotent. She wins the divorce and he is devastated and he puts together a scheme of payback of sorts. And well, you don't really know why. That's kind of the joy of the movie. Like, is he trying to mess with her? Is he trying to win her love? Figuring all that out is part of the fun of white and the intention of it. Now I've noticed that. With blue. With white and probably with red, when I'm describing what these movies are about, there are some Mike subplots to these movies that are very important. We're just not going into all those because I don't like describing the plot of the plot. But like his friend in here, Nikolai, is, you know, that's a really, really poignant aspect because he this guy Carol in the film. Carol. Carol yeah. Carol, right. Carol, Carol in the film the main character. He meets people along the way, some of which are trying to help him selflessly and he's forming all of these relationships. But his motivation, this is a really nice guy. He's like a really kind. Yeah, good hearted guy. Why he seems so intent on like, winning this woman. Dominique played Julie Delpy winning her back. You're like, I don't know, man. She doesn't even really seem to like you. But that's that's part of the joy of it. The theme for this is equality, but I think it's more like the inequality us or it's what Roger Ebert dubbed this one as the anti comedy. Because while there are like funny parts of it, like when he realizes he's home in Poland, that's like Hillary. Is it almost. Yeah. I mean, that is that is. Just so, so funny. I don't know what to say how he arrives there, but yeah, let's get into three colors. White, I think as my jumping off point, this is the only one I had seen once because I watched them all in college and Blue was the one that, like my DNA connected to that thing. Red is by far the most acclaimed. It was nominated for war, nominated for Oscars white. I considered probably the slightest of the bunch, and that's probably how up until last week I would have described it to people, wow. That I have. I mean, I would have given the movie like a very high ranking, but I had an about face in a way that I never would have expected with this because I already really liked it. But I'm sitting there watching it, and when we got to the end, I kind of thought to myself like, Wow, dude, you're an that's so much better. To even say the word slight in relation to this movie is just foolish. But yeah, tell me about white. So I had no idea what to expect. I knew going into blue, I just knew from conversations we had had and just things that I had read about the movie. I was like, okay, this is about grief. You know? I knew there was going to be something heavy. And Kieslowski is a relatively heavier themes director. So when all of a sudden White starts, I had a bit of a time trying to figure out what it was. And okay, yeah. And then I just did. The best thing that anyone should ever do when watching a movie is just surrender. Just give in. It wasn't until and this doesn't ruin anything, but she basically frames him for lighting her shop on fire. Yep. And I laughed. And I just go. Oh, okay. All right. I think I. Understand. And then from then on, like the movie as it's not a comedy necessarily, but it would be incorrect to say that there is not specific comedic choices being made by the storyteller. Yes, this character is an off and I loved kind of wondering, is this guy an idiot in a like in a in a jester fool type of way? Or is he a genius? Right, exactly. He goes between these two and that's where and that's where the movie is. And then if he is a genius, is he even aware of his capacity and of his. But yes. Does has he ever been tapped into his genius or is he just like a sad sack, loveable idiot? Yeah, exactly. And yeah. And the whole entire movie, I think operates on that level. And ultimately, you know, Koslowski ends up proving that, you know, he's the genius by doing that. But indeed, indeed. But this movie does. One of the things that I love that that American movies just don't is the way that we meet that character. Nikola Oh, God. You know, our main character's found himself homeless, and all he has is a suitcase, and he's just laying on the subway, playing a harmonica again. Objects? Yes. Randomly playing a harmonica with. He's turned like his comb in like a harmonica. He's put a piece of paper over it. So he's gone. He's like done this intentional act and it's just, you know, whistling Dixie. And it doesn't really seem like he's doing much of anything. But then, yes, continue. Yes. And then all of a sudden, this man, stranger, just asked him like basis a similar thing to the in blue. Like, how do you know this song? What are you playing exactly? And they all of a sudden form a connection. And we come to find out that this guy is just meandering through his life. Yep. And when you're meandering, you notice other meanders. I just love that. I love that there was no explanation. We did not need a complete back story exposition, connection point. It was just life in a random like if I wasn't coming out of the subway, I would have never met you. Yeah, I totally agree. And what's so cool about that location because he Kozlowski will like to take us back to the same location for different scenes is we have another scene set down there and that subway platform. And it is one of the it's one of the best things I've ever seen of someone accepting death, potentially. And then, yeah, literally in a flash, coming to understand the benefit of life. And it is it's so profoundly moving. I think I missed that the first time I watch. It's like I didn't I didn't remember that scene. And now that's the scene. I can't get out of my head from this. And obviously, I think Blue is just it's one of the most moving scene that's one of the most moving movies I've ever seen. But it impacted me so deeply and white to seeing someone who's, you know, given up and then realize again very quickly that, no, I'm not ready to give up like I am alive. I'm here. Obviously an important thing for me. I just I love that. And what's great about that scene is that's a subplot exactly. That scene that we're referring to, which is probably honestly is probably my favorite moment of the whole entire movie. But it doesn't have to do with what the main character's trajectory is. Yeah, it tells you what kind of man he is, but not like. Yes, it's not like furthering the plot of this core romance. No, talking about doesn't have anything to do with that act, honestly. And I feel like this was something that Kieslowski wanted to express. I feel like this is something that the director was like, You know what? I really want to have a scene that that encapsulates this feeling of accepting death. You have these ideas in your head and you're like, How do I get them out? In a way that does make sense. And it does. But I love that it has nothing to do with anything else. It's it's like trying to fit an idea into a song for a brief moment where this is something to do with the song, but yet we're going to keep going. But just for this one moment, we're going to stop over here and and I love that. I think it's so cool. You know, these movies are about to one degree or another transformations because watching them a train, again, is big. Neve Zama, Chelsea Carroll. Carroll, Carroll. Carroll. He's that watching him transform into like gaining a little confidence, having a. Plan, going. About things. It's so fun and refreshing. Not unlike watching Juliette Binoche make this very quick decision to know I'm isolating myself. And then, like you said, almost the world ain't ready to be done with you yet. The only other thing I want to say about White is that, again, bringing it back to objects is the scene in the subway where I think it's the big it's the big moment for his character when he decides everything is is when he makes a certain phone call and and something happens in that phone call, he loses his money and he demands out of the only time we truly see him angry. And all he has left is this one coin to me. I just took. That is like this coin represents everything about his motivation to do something. We don't know what, but he looks at that coin every time to be reminded of something. It's the motivation of everything that is about to happen, and I just think it's always very, very cool cinematically when you can when you can attach an idea like that to an object. Yeah. And that coin is really significant because two times based on him playing or looking at that coin, we flash to her to Julie Devlin. We don't know what's going on. We don't know why. Yeah. And then this isn't a spoiler, but we come to learn that those are, in fact flash forwards, not flashbacks. And that's that's again, Kozlowski messing with form because the movie's art like if they are ever confusing, it's because he intentionally is like what he wants you to be questioning it. But I've never ended a Kozlowski film and been like, huh? I mean, unless that is kind of the point. But I've never been I've never been lost. I've never been lost by one. Never. So even if it does get a little at abstract or obscure, it always, I don't know. He always sticks them landing. One thing before we wrap up on white the use of color in it. It to me is almost like he's almost poking fun at the lack of use of white because it's not like this thing is covered in like white props or anything. To me, this is just the most natural looking of the films. There's no extra color, you know, injected into it. The best use of white are the those three point of view shots of the wedding day when it's yeah, slightly different every time and we see her reaction different every time that really clues you into everything. But yeah, going back to equality or perhaps inequality, watching. The ending. Where they are exactly watching the ending, like where was where the movie was an hour ago and then that final shot and looking at his face and what is his reaction all Oh, it's just it's really, really perfect. It really nails. It. I think it has to be one of the best endings that I've seen that communicates an idea with no dialog. Yep. Yeah. And that's a huge acting credit to both of them because what he wears on his face and what the other person does without any dialog, it just sums up everything and it's fucking perfect. Oh my God, it's so fucking good again. Another reason to encourage people to watch these in the order in which they were presented. If you are watching closely in the beginning of light, you may or may not catch Juliette Binoche as Julie in one scene. So you know, if you're just if you start with white and you're like, there was Juliette Binoche there for a second, you know, it's not going to make sense. So that's kind of he's doing fun, things like that. And there's he reuses some of the same actors, you know, you might see people kind of in the background who are the same, but in white there are a lot of collaborators that he use, particularly in the Decalogue. A lot of those actors appear in there as well and it's just cool to see them again. But okay. Movie Barry Number two What movie do you want to match with White here? Are we going to for two. This would be. Amazing if we were but this one, this one's a little I don't know. I went with Christopher Nolan's memento. Oh, cool. That's not mine. That's. But that's okay. Okay. All right, all right. That's. I love that. So there's a this ultimately white is a revenge movie. Yes. Yes, it's true. And I thought a lot about it and there is there's a lot of movies about revenge. The Memento cuts in a certain way. That is certain scene in white cuts to the bone with and it's all done through a woman. Right. So the scene when Carrie-Anne Moss really really says some vicious mean things to guy Pearce. Yeah. Just the overall idea of a guy sets out to do accomplish this one thing and then is met with a lot of different people helping and hindering along his way. And that that really cut to the bone moments I kind of found memento living in the same which be kind of a cool double feature in is tonally they're very different, but thematically they share a lot of the same things. I love that I went with a movie Christopher Nolan absolutely loves and that's Phantom Thread because it's a shared love. You had to get it in here. Yeah, you had to do it. And it's, you know, it doesn't have a conventional stance on love. It's like, what do we have to do to go after it? What do we have to do to get over it and perhaps win it back? Very unconvincing no love story that has some playful humor in there, to say the least. I see that. I can see that. I can absolutely see that. Well, just. Them like looking at each other from afar and knowing what the shot is, knowing how they're fucking with each other. That's right. Yeah. In Phantom Thread when I was actually watching it in the theater. Phantom Thread kind of popped out the use of music and like, you know, they're skating without dialog and music swelling up so good. Okay, the third and final film of the trilogy and Kieslowski's final film, we have Three Colors Red released in 1994. This time were set in Geneva. You know, blue is Paris, white is a little in Paris, but mostly Warsaw, in red is Geneva. And this is the hardest one to describe. This movie is about this movie is about how we may be connected to people, perhaps deeply connected to people without ever really knowing them. And maybe one or two of these people intersect with our weird little avenue of the world and we try to form a bond. It's threads kind of about the synchronicity of life. So Valentine, played by Irene. Irene Jacob is she's a young student slash models. She has a possessive boyfriend that we never meet and she hits a dog with her car accidentally. She finds the dog's owner, and he happens to be a very ornery, retired judge who is using audio surveillance to listen to his neighbors phone calls. Why? I'm not even sure if he's sure, but that's like the core exercise of the movie is that we see these two people trying to understand each other and trying to find connection and purpose. You know, it's also it's not a love story about a 20 something woman and a 60 something year old man. It's much, much smarter than that. But and again, this also has like be plots about we're hearing a lot of the same stories like the judge will describe he went through decades ago. But we've also but then we may see that later in the movie from a completely different character and it's like is character like the judge's life? But it's not it's not that clear. It's just all these little patterns, all these little acts of randomness. That is the genius of this particular movie. I, honest to God, do not know how an audience won't get lost in the finality of what Kieslowski is putting there in that way, because none of these things are addressed like. But Kieslowski is mystically playing with time and people. Yes. In a way that leads you as the viewer to go off in your imagination and connect certain things for yourself, or come up with certain ideas, but never get confused. Yeah. To where you were like, wait, is this that? Yes, you're having those questions. But it's I just don't know how how a filmmaker puts that to cinema and audience is not confused. Right. I'll try to contextualize this a little bit without. Yeah, I don't know how. To do it. No, it's tough because there were people in my theater, you know, couples or just friends sitting with each other, like kind of whispering, trying to figure it out and I loved it because I was like, Oh, this is great. So just as a very quick example, she is constantly talking to her boyfriend on the phone and he's very possessive and often after these conversations, we will the camera will even like track like across the street. It will go into a different apartment, a man's apartment. And he's usually like getting off the phone. One may guess, Oh, is this like her boyfriend? And he's lying just about not talking to her or something? Yeah. Or he's lying about not being in town because he keeps saying, you know, he's traveling for work and that you can go down that. But that's that's kind of an American version of it that. Yes, the. Boyfriend is in the apartment across the street sneaking around is that is not where this movie goes. But it was so fun for me to hear those whispers going, is that oh, that's her boyfriend. And Kozlowski's so smart about this that you never hear his name referenced until he wants you to hear it referenced. And then you're like, Oh, okay. Fraternity is the theme of Read about. Yes. Who can we find, the people we're connected to. And if we if we do, can we form some sort of bond? There are narratives kind of that we're describing that mirror each other, but these are not exact reflections. You know, it's it's all like I said, he really wanted to capture the senses. Like not just what you need to see in here, but what you need to feel. Where's that bond, that Lincoln humanity. And it's this is by far the most difficult one to describe verbally, because there's just things in it that like. A. Few other selling points for Red that I think are really interesting. This is like, I think one of two movies or one of very few movies that's 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic so that's a cool point from it. Yeah, you get nominated for Oscars and then let's talk about the use of red in this one because this is here it's in a lot of the props it's in a lot of the stuff around her. Like, you know, she's, again, a model. So she has kind of the visually thematic tie in of the whole film is her doing a photoshoot for bubblegum. And how that Billboard gets put up in the film will just be fixated on that billboard and why that billboard will mean so much to us by the end of the movie. But I love how heavily featured the color is here because it's a very I mean, we talked about Reynolds podcast like as it relates, it cries and whispers, but it's just it's so beautiful here and it's never forced because red can be such a tricky color. But I mean, even that red like fiber optic phone call in the beginning is such a trip. Like, it's so fun. Yeah. The color in this, I'll always be drawn to blue, like the most in this series. But the use of red here is some of the best use of red just I've ever seen. I completely agree. I think color wise, I was more drawn to what Red was doing in this movie, and they're just totally different too. I mean, they couldn't be more different that the way that they. He uses those colors. Yeah. Yeah. This might have been one of my favorite. I mean, all the characters that we follow in these movies, Scott, are so good. But the Irene Jacobs character is playing this very young. She's a model, like you said, she's a smart girl. But she's very naive in the way that only youth can be. Yeah. Yeah. Like she really felt like to me, she was somebody who had just came out to a big city and doesn't know how to do certain things in life. Like, but she's doing them the best she can. I wanted to kill her when she hit the dog, and then she didn't go right to the vet. Right. And then she's taking her time, like looking at the map. Yeah. And I'm like, you got to get a move on now. I just because I'm partial to taking care of the dog. But she decides to go to the owner's house, which is, again, a beautiful way that Kieslowski is connecting these characters, is through this dog. It also made sense because she says, I didn't know what to do. Like she like you could like she wasn't dumb that maybe the thought of the idea of going to the vet came up because she says to him, Do you want me to take him to the vet or take her the dog? Take her to the vet? So I don't know. There's something that was uniquely expressed about that type of use of being out of your home. You're out by yourself, and now you've kind of encountered a life moment where you need to make an actual just decision and what you're going to do. I just picked up on that. I just kind of thought that that was a very, very cool thing. You don't really see a lot in characters, really just being honest about where they are in their lives and who they are and what happens at the age you're at. And even when she's talking with him, she's got a certain view of life that has not been tainted by life experience yet. Well, and he. Knows because he's just tainted. He's so poorly taken. He's just so over done. And I want to say real quick that the judge is played by Jean-Louis Treanor, who was the husband in a more I mean, he's he's been known for so many other things, but he's so, so good here. Oh, they're so good. And and the way that they both learn from each other, like the relationship that they form together. It's incredible to watch from start to finish, you know, and by the time this doesn't mean anything either, but there's an event that he goes to at the end of the movie that that she's in. It's such an earned moment between the two of them. I this movie is just. I don't. Know how this movie succeeds the way it does. It's crazy. It's so good. Yeah, it's really breathtaking. And that judge is his character, her type of being a voyeur by listening to his neighbors. That's another very classic Kieslowski trait, character trait. And I love it. Yeah, he's not even really doing it in a way that's, like, nefarious. It's just. You just curious. I don't know. Just. Yeah, it's so funny. It's so funny. And the idea of what I thought was really cool about him, too, is like a judge. Mm hmm. Yeah, right. You're supposed to be the moral high ground, and you. Do not think about when the end of a life comes for an occupation that has spent his whole entire life deciding the fate of people. Right. Like there is a big. I've never had I never took time to think about that. I never took the time to put myself in the shoes of an older person who spent their life being a judge and being like, wow, what does that now mean for me? What do I feel about life and people in all of this now? That is a very cool idea that he communicated. Yeah, very true. True. And then, of course, we're not going to say what happens, but the final 5 minutes of this movie, especially if you stuck with it and you watch Blue first and then you watched White. I mean, it's just so poignant and beautiful. And I think it is even the final frame of red is just the way he is thematically tying things together. He is an absolute genius. And what like a final what a magnificent final frame of your career? I just can't. It really made me fall in love, these movies all over again. But yeah, those I mean, that that ending again, just trying to really endorse watching these in order not going to say what they're about. But you have to. Yeah you really should. Yeah. And I feel like we have not really gone into red in much as detail as we have with the other two, because it is it's kind of impossible. Like we can't talk about certain things because this is truly a movie that you need to experience and let it unfold for you. And then you can then have conversations it because I think what we both want to talk about, we can't. Yeah, yeah. Because we would give too much away. I mean what we're. Going to what ultimately we'd be talking about our ideas. They're not elements of the what makes this movie great. They're like, What did you think? How did you take that? What was your opinion like? You leave this movie with ideas, not critique. And I think that is the biggest achievement that art can make. Yeah, because I'm not walking away from any film he's directed like mad at it because I couldn't figure it out or anything like that. It's yes, it's presenting an idea and that's what that's where this inspiration comes from. That's why we can't let these movies go after you watch them and they're just like following you around. And it's crazy. And I do want to talk about like just before we you know, close up here, I want to know kind of about your theatrical experiences for both. I wanted to kind of save this for the end because I saw mine and one day you spent it out over three weeks, but like, you know, in our movies that make us cry up. So I did reference that I had recently seen a movie where no one moved at the end and that was blue here. Not a single person moved at the end of blue like that thing. The credits came up and we all just stayed there. But I had crowds that were very engaged, very invested. However, the crowds get progressively bigger, which, you know, it's I get it like the first movies at noon. Not too many of us go to movies at noon. I love to the last movies at four. So that's just a more popular to go to the movies. But there were people in there who, based on their reaction, had not seen blue or white. And that was kind of funny for me to watch them watch it, because I don't think they were getting what the rest of us were getting out of it. But I had spotted a few people who had done what I had done that day and seen all three. And we kind of had a nice little conversation after, and it was that none of them had seen any of them before. So it was really fun to hear like their favorites. And we kind of talked about that and you and I will get to that, but yeah, like what were what were your crowds like? Were they into it? And then more over what? What were you left with? Like walking out of each screening, like, what are you doing? Are you like in a daze or like, what's going on? So I had a very cool experience that I will always remember. Again, this is what we talk about in, you know, why movie theaters are important. I can really trace back every movie I've seen and I'll know if I saw it in theaters and I'll know who I saw it with. Oh, yeah, me too. Working at my job, one of the guys that works there, we found that we have this same taste in movies. So I told him about Kieslowski because he mentioned him first, and I go, Okay, if you even know who that is, you're someone who I want to tell. Absolutely. And so we went every Wednesday together, and after the movie we went to the exact same tie restaurant. Oh, nice. To talk about him now. Like every time I go to restaurant, there's no way that I will never think about how I saw the Three Colors trilogy with a buddy. And we here to dinner to talk about it afterwards. And so that was the personal time that I had with it. And when it was over, we were just talking the ideas like what separates these movies from other types of movies, the language that Kieslowski tells us in through cinema. Had he seen. Them? Yeah, he had seen them. But it was similar to you where it had been a while, not for Blue, but I think he'd seen them all like once before. He forgot completely how much he loved. White Stripes, obviously. Yeah, that's like. That was almost like seeing it for the first time. I knew where, I knew how began. I knew some things that happened in it. I did not remember the coming to terms with valuing life. Don't remember that at all. That's, that's like. Yeah. I mean that yeah. That was I found that to be profoundly moving. I made a whole movie it and you were the star of it. That I'm alive available anywhere. Oh yeah but the crowds though to get back to the movie going experience it was great because it was L.A.. Yeah. I mean, L.A. crowds are always good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially because if you get the specific types of film going crowds and this was this was presented by American Cinematheque. We had sold out crowds. Everyone was attentive. Wow. Everyone was engaged. You could hear most sense in all of them. Gasps, laughs. Yeah. I think the payoff at the end of read without saying what it is, there is a moment collectively the audience had a reaction. Yes, yes. That spoke to me and that I was like, I love that. I thought that was a very so to see read after all of them, to have an audience in the room for it, the way it all connected, that was probably one of the coolest movie experiences I've had is with the audience. All having collectively a group satisfaction. Yeah, yeah. Like a shared contentment. Like. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, wow, yeah. One story I want to talk about. And then we're going to do our movie pairing the funny stories that I love it. I love it. And it was positioned to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994. It was kind of the narrative that because this is Kozlowski's last film, like, this is going to win, and then the winner is announced. And some, you know, asshole named Quentin Tarantino walks on stage and collects his award for Pulp fiction. And people are booing him because they wanted Kozlowski to win. And he flicks them off. And it's just one of the all time great, you know, acceptance speeches. Go watch it. It's it's very easy to find. But when they win, the people are booing at him. They are booing at him about three colors. Red rested. Yeah. So. Okay, movie period. You could I don't know. We'll see. Tell me what goes with Red for you. And this is a tough one to pair with. Admittedly, I agree. But Yeah. Give me give it your best shot. So there, there's actually two movies that I would pair. Well, okay, I'll put it this way. I got a, I have a very interesting sub pairing to make where I would pair all three of these movies with one movie. But okay. Give me that last, give me the parallel Badlands first. Okay. But I like that. I like that. Yeah. The pairing of Red goes to Wim Wenders. Wings of Desire. Oh, motherfucker, you had me. I have Wim Wenders, Paris, Texas. Oh, you said Wim Wenders. I jumped. Yeah, well, dude, that's that's that's all. That's, like, that's fucking too. Two, three. Oh, me. That's fucking crazy. Same tone, though. There's a tone. Yes. That Wenders absolutely understands. All right, you first. Yeah, I love that. So for for me, and I understood. This is why I know you so well. Because I know exactly why. You chose Paris, Texas. Yep. And I'm imagining that you probably know why I chose. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. Because for me, the biggest takeaway that I got red was the mysticism of it all and. And Wings of desire really, really. And captures this bigger than what we have perspectives. Bigger than what we can see, bigger than what we know. Different levels of existentialism at play. That, of course, is what I connect with when I watch Red and Wings of Desire. Yeah. Wim Wenders, really? They understand each. Other, if you like Wim Wenders, he's good. He's. I have a feeling you would be into Kieslowski. And I think more people probably in the mainstream of like seen Paris, Texas or even Wings of Desire or something that he's made. But yeah that that's a good way to you know and good avenue and it. KOSLOWSKI If you're a fan of Wenders Yeah and I went with Paris, Texas because that you know the isolate and the longing, the looking, searching for connection and then hopefully things click the stark use of color like it. Just that one really popped into my head. But Wings of Desire is great, too. Oh, that's perfect. I love that vid. Those are those are perfect reasons for both. The both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it's really is. All right. What one. What do you want to pair with the whole trilogy? So this was a movie that that sparked in my head after every conversation that me and my friend from work had after this movies is that we talk about these movies, the Kieslowski, the blue, white and red. And at some point this one movie came up in all of them, not for a very long period of time, but it was referenced among all three conversations. And that's Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Very good. Very good. There is something. There. Almost the same length like Magnolia. Yeah, I know. It's two of these. I it. Yeah. There are. It would blow my mind if PTA was not influenced in some form or fashion making magnolia with this. Well he has to have been white with phantom thread. There are just similarities. Yeah, there's PTA. I mean, there any. I'd be really hard pressed to think that anyone with PTA sensibilities was, like, would just ignore Kozlowski. You know, I would assume he's a fan, but that's a great call. Yeah. Just because of the interconnectedness of it all as well. These are great movies that we're talking about. Yeah, they really are. These are like the top, top tier movies. I mean, movies that we've done deep dives for. We like to have, you know, some of us me might have an obsession with some of them like shame. But we usually like to be really, really big fans of them somewhere Place Beyond the Pines. And this is I mean, you're not really going to find better movies of the three colors like Made in the nineties, you know? No, you're not. Indiewire just did a really fun list of Best, the top 100 movies of the nineties. It's a really spirited list. They have some on there that I haven't seen. The order of stuff is really spirited, but then they also released they had polled a bunch of people like people in the industry and asked them for their top ten of the nineties and three colors, either as a trilogy or blue, white or red was on a lot of people's lists. And that's just really cool to see that like, okay, these movies do mean something to a lot of people. How do you want to try ranking these? Just order personal preference. What do you like the most? I think I mean, I always make you go first and stuff. I can go first here. I'm just going to do Blue will always be my number one. It's a movie I've gone back to, I have watch Blue and studied certain aspects of it. For every film I've made means so much to me. I'll put red at number two because I've just never really seen anything else like that. The actual best like movie pairing for Red is The Double Life of Veronique by Kozlowski starring Irene Jacob. They play like great features. There's so many similarities. And then White is third. But I would also give every one of these movies an A-plus or ten out of ten whatever. You want to say, this is precarious? I'll just say ranking these. But I'm curious. The experience that I had with all of them was so uniquely profound for anyone who's trying to open up their filmmaking sensibilities and open themselves up to new ways of thinking about what cinema can do. These might be one of the best ways in we're not going to weird. We're not going to avant garde. Yeah. Or too cold because like Birdman. Or too which yeah. Because Bergman Yeah be very cold. A lot of foreign movies with this non American sense of it can be cold which you know, I happen to like. But yeah these don't leave you with a sense of cold. No, not at all. So. And even if they are intense and heavy, okay, this will change because it's just the way that I'm feeling. Guess red would be number one, blue would be number two and white would be number three. And I hate that white comes last. Yeah. Mean some ass too but no it really it really doesn't like. It's also an ingenious ordering that he put forth. Yes. Blue is the most emotionally difficult. It's the toughest to like get through and win my screening let out of blue. I heard murmurs of like, wow, this is going to be a really long day if white and red are like this, too. And I was like, okay, good, good. Because I knew that they weren't. And then white is the most, you know, it leaves you with like it's easiest to follow. And it is like if we had to pick it, it's the lightest of the bunch. And then Red is the most mystical of the bunch, and it's the one that's probably going to leave you with the most like ideas of oh yeah. Oh yeah, that was that. So it's a really smart order that he put them into. If you have a Criterion subscription, if you're on that channel, you got to queue these up. I mean, you know, yeah, one a day like have a blue day, have a white day, have a red day because they also have they put up all the special features for these because I own this old DVD set, which I love, but like watching some of these special features over the course of the week, I'm like, I got to get this Blu ray Criterion boxset because this is just yeah, I haven't even seen the Watchmen like everything the way that he describes his own filmmaking. There is no pretension. He's he's able to distill it down in a way that's very simple. Like, hey, Kozlowski, why do you use so many damn close ups? What's the point in the way that he describes them? It's like he wants to put you in that character's point view, like, why are they fixating on the stuff? It's just, you know, some directors kind of the thing is not explaining David Lynch, like he's not going to tell you anything. Some is to talk a little abstractly about what they made like. I love reading and hearing Bergman talk about his work. Some of his some of where it's coming from is a little abstract. But Kozlowski just I don't know, he has a way distilling it down. And it's so easy to comprehend and so easy to digest. And it's just that's another shout out. And and if you just want, you know, bare Bones movies, I just want to watch each movie. They're both on HBO. They're all three on HBO right now. So please just fucking watch them. I'll share this last thing about read. You can edit this if you want. That thing I was talking about where? I don't know how a director does this. Like, I don't know how he communicates this, this existential kind of way of thinking in one of the shots where the dog runs away from Irene Jacob and goes into the church, he's like, Now we're going to hold on this shot when she enters the church for a little bit longer than normal, he feels comfortable and he goes, Because I want us to feel like we've been here before. Because we have. Yep. Because in the previous shot, when she's done working out, she's downing a giant water bottle and that's the same steps she was on in the church. And because this movie goes into a lot of different ways, thinking, you're oftentimes thinking, Wait, have I seen this before? Like when you're asking yourself, does this person know each other from the past? Is this all these tiny little things that he's doing in moments like this help contribute to an overall idea that the audience is now subconsciously ready to ascertain for themselves? And so that's just fucking brilliance right there. And he's breaks it down. So simple. So simple in a way that's very easy to understand. Okay, final thoughts here. I have a prompt for you, but I'm going to start with we talked about a lot today, talked about some obscure Polish cinema like we have. We've this has been a nerd heavy episode. But I will often say, you know, people, if you haven't seen a Kieslowski movie and you're like, where should I begin? I'm often like, Hey, go back to the beginning. I don't really think you need to do that here. You can, even if you had the time to start it, decalogue and work your down through the end of his career because that's Decalogue, that's the double life of Veronique and that is these three movies, Three Colors trilogy. Or if you just want to start with Blue and then do white and then do red, I promise you're going if you are a fan of cinema and fan of seeing ideas communicated in a different way, you are going to take something of value from each of these and from his body of work as a whole. I don't want people to sleep on the double life of Veronique. It is so good. It is so thematically linked to three colors. Which leads me in my prompt to you. You have now officially entered Christophe Kozlowski's world, where Nick Dostal you go from here. What movie of his are you watching next? I'm watching that one. Veronique. Veronique. Yeah, I'm going to work backwards. I'm going to go with Veronique and then I'm going to finish Decalogue. Yeah, I'm going to do Decalogue from the beginning. I'm going to do like set aside two or three days and do like three a day, something like that. Yeah. And then I'm going to work back and cameraperson. Camera buff. You're a camera buff. Camera buff and then keep going down because I, I have officially launched into an obsession and, and it's one I don't want to leave because it's like I said in the beginning, this episode, like I think this is really opened me up to something that I can't say no to like. I like whatever film products are coming up next that I'm going to make. I think this is this is my way. And if that makes sense for any other, like filmmakers out there, artists or anything, like whenever you find something that truly opens you up and inspiration ways you have no choice but to go. You have to just completely immerse yourself because whatever is at the bottom of that is going to be useful. So I think that's where I'm at. So this is a very cool place to be and I absolutely love it. So thank you for South Koslowski recipes. Yes, absolutely. And We can. Yes. And we can always come back to them because the Decalogue makes like it's a perfect podcast episode just sitting right there. And yeah, my final thoughts on the three colors trilogy is that it's so cool in each film how you can distill down the intention of every character based on how they react to someone attempting to recycle a bottle. And it's so cool that he spends time on that. That's all I'm going to say. So I'm going to say. What a way to end it. Talking about these thematically linked things it is. So I add something I call it the first time I watch it, but just seeing that in the way they play off, watching someone trying to recycle is incredible. That's how great this director is that he can distill his entire movie, the movie down to where we've been talking about for like hour, 45 minutes. And I'm talking about a recycling receptacle. And it's something that you'll just never forget. If you watch these movies, you'll never forget it. Oh, my God. That's so perfect to end with that. Yeah. I think our what do you watch because I think we've covered it because we give it people so much to watch. This is probably more challenging than people are used to. So was going to suggest for what do you watch things people just you know, blue, white and red. That's the top of what we're recommending today. I think that's fair to say from both of us. But then also listen to those double features. We call it out, you know, so for me, it would be blue, 21 grams white, phantom thread red Paris, Texas, and then yours. 21 grams Memento and Wings of Desire. I really like that because some people listening to this have seen these movies and maybe they want, you know, I don't know, double feature to watch them with. I love doing double features. I love making up my own double features, double life. Veronique It's another recommendation, but yeah, I love that we got to pair these movies together with another film, but I mean, that's it. CAR Do you have anything else to say before we close the door on Three Colors trilogy here? I'm excited for you to read explore these a few years from now because they only get better. You just see something new every time everyone does. I just want to get the blu rays right now and just. And just rewatch them. Yeah. Keep this trilogy open. And when the time is right, these movies will come into your life. And they will mean something. So if that's the time is now, see it now. If not, be ready. Because when they do, you'll thank. Us. If the time is now, then please let us know on Twitter at W a y w underscore podcasts. We recently had one of our tweets go fucking nuts. We're like 2000 likes. It's awesome but crazy as always, thank you for listening and happy watching. Hey everyone, thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow dot com. Nicholas Docx Tor.com is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at What are you watching? Podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter at W AIW Underscore Podcast. Next time it's going to be a bit of a reading corner as discuss Heat two, Election two and a ton of other book to movie adaptations that we love. Stay tuned.