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Three Colors: Blue, White, Red (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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*** 11/26/11: ADDED REVIEW OF CRITERION BLU-RAY EDITION ***

The late great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski cleverly "adapted" the three French ideals -- liberty, equality, fraternity -- into three thought-provoking modern-day dramas about people who cope with personal losses and tragedies. In BLUE, the first of the trilogy, a widow tries to set herself free (and gain liberty) from her emotional baggages. The second film, WHITE, is about a jilted man's outrageous plot to get even (thus, equality) with his ex-wife. The last film, RED, which is also Kieslowski's final film before he died in 1996, is about a lonely old man who is embittered by the memories of his youth and finds accidental companionship (fraternity) with a young model. All three films are understated in their tone, economical in their dialogs, elliptical in their editing and plotting (there are some mind-boggling flashbacks and flash forwards in WHITE), and haunting in their atmosphere.

The films regard the three French ideals quite indirectly, and in fact more and more so as the trilogy progresses. BLUE is the only one that deals with the ideal of "freedom" (albeit emotional freedom) in a concrete way, inviting us to ponder its meanings and its attainability. WHITE treats the concept of "equality" in a rather subversive and satiric manner, and it clearly wants us to rethink its meanings rather than accepting it at face value. And RED has to do with "fraternity" only circumstantially, and has more to do with the subject of destiny, and how our past is linked to our present. The three films are set not just in France, but also in Poland and Switzerland, and WHITE has primarily Polish dialogs. Hence, a sort of universality is intended.

The three films are also linked in various ways. All three films involve an unfaithful lover who dies, in one way or another. All three films involve a chance encounter between the distressed protagonist and a sympathetic observer -- the widow and the mistress in BLUE, Karol and Mikolaj in WHITE, the retired judge and the model in RED. Both BLUE and WHITE are about people who move to new surroundings to escape from his or her troubled pasts. And RED, ironically, is about someone who never leaves his home in order to wallow in his self-pity.

Kieslowski had done this sort of thing before. In 1988, he "adapted" the Ten Commandments into ten one-hour, modern-day dramas, collectively titled DECALOGUE, that invite us to rethink the meanings of those principles. In the segment for "Thou Shalt Not Steal," for instance, we witness the kidnapping (the theft) of a child from her adopted parents by her natural mother, who thinks she has a right to her custody. Thus, it turns clear-cut moral ideals into real-world dramas that have no clear-cut solutions or judgments.

The THREE COLORS TRILOGY (as well as DECALOGUE) has the scope and richness that truly earn the films' standing as one of the high points of modern cinematic achievements.

Criterion Blu-ray edition of THREE COLORS offers an improved video transfer over the 2003 Miramax/Buena Vista DVD edition. This is not merely due to the inherent advantage of high-def over standard-def, but also to the fact that Criterion created new remastered transfers that look much better than the old transfers. The Buena Vista edition looks good for its time, but compared to Criterion's effort, the colors often look too warm and saturated, and details in the shadows are often obscured. In a trilogy where colors have great visual significance, the better video representation on the Criterion Blu-ray is much welcome and needed.

Criterion also offers DTS HD-MA 2.0 surround tracks for the three films, but you may need to do a bit of funky adjustments to get them to work. Note that these are 2.0, not 5.1 tracks. Criterion expects you to use Pro Logic Surround decoding on your audio receiver to turn the 2.0 tracks into surround tracks. However, older receivers, like mine, may not be able to apply Pro Logic to DTS audio. So what I did was I had my Blu-ray player first convert the DTS audio into PCM multi-channel audio and pass it to my receiver, and then I was able to apply Pro Logic to the PCM audio. To compound matters, the WHITE disc's surround audio was encoded incorrectly, yielding 1.0 mono after applying Pro Logic. Criterion is currently fixing this problem, and will offer a replacement in December to those who already bought the set. Contact Criterion's point man Jon Mulvaney ( mulvaney@criterion.com ) regarding the replacement. On the BLUE and RED discs, the surround tracks do work, and with much higher bit rate they do sound better than the surround tracks on the Buena Vista discs.

The fully-loaded Criterion set contains several new supplements, but is also missing a quite a few extras on the Buena Vista set.

Bad news first. The wonderful full-length audio commentaries by film professor Annette Insdorf on the Buena Vista set are gone. Also gone are most of the interviews done by MK2 (producer Marin Karmitz's company) in 2001, with actresses Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, and Irene Jacob, editor Jacques Witta (for BLUE), and Karmitz (for BLUE and WHITE). Most of the MK2 featurettes are also gone: "A Discussion on Kieslowski's Later Years", "A Discussion on Working with Kieslowski", "Behind the Scenes of White with Kieslowski", and "Behind the Scenes of Red with Kieslowski". Selected scenes commentaries by Delpy and Jacob are also gone. Also noticeably missing are two student films by Kieslowski: "Concert of Wishes" and "The Office". All these valuable video and audio extras are NOT on the Criterion set. Needless to say, those who have the Buena Vista set should probably hold on to it.

The Criterion set does retain some of the old extras. It does have several of the MK2 featurettes: "Kieslowski's Early Years", "Reflections on BLUE" (featuring the cast and crew, Insdorf, film critic Geoff Andrew, and film director Agnieszka Holland), Marin Karmitz's interview for RED, and Jacques Witta's interview for RED. It has Binoche's selected scenes commentary for BLUE. All the wonderful "cinema lessons" by Kieslowski are also retained. The footage of Kieslowski announcing his retirement at Cannes also, thankfully, survived the cut. Also retained are two of Kieslowski's student films, "The Tram" and "The Face", although the picture quality of "The Tram" is noticeably worse than that on the Buena Vista DVD, with more print damage and a much darker picture.

The all-new extras offered by Criterion are all excellent. Each film comes with a 22-minute "video essay", done by Insdorf for BLUE, film critic Tony Rayns for WHITE, and film writer Dennis Lim for RED. These segments are essentially audio commentaries with film clips and stills. While they are well-written and informative, they seem a little too terse, due to their short lengths, compared to Insdorf's full-length commentaries for the Buena Vista DVDs.

There are new interviews with composer Zbigniew Preisner, actors Delpy, Jacob, and Zbigniew Zamachowski, and screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Criterion usually does great interviews, and these are no exception. They are all more in-depth and comprehensive than their MK2 counterparts. They were all shot in 2011. Ten years after they were interviewed by MK2, their enthusiasm and admiration for Kieslowski's work are apparently unchanged.

There are also three wonderful documentaries not on the Buena Vista set. The 16-minute "Seven Women of Different Ages" (1978) shows seven ballet dancers in each day of the week, from a little ballerina to an old ballet teacher, subtly depicting the journey of a dancer and of life itself. "Talking Heads" (1980), running 12 minutes, interviews several people in the order of their ages about who they are and what they want to be; it brings to mind Michael Apted's UP documentaries. And there is a 1-hour documentary made for Danish TV in 1995 called "Krzysztof Kieslowski: I'm So-So", where the just-retired director reminisces about his career, from his early films to his later masterpieces, and we hear many of his pessimistic views about art, life, and politics. He concludes the film by saying, "To know is not my job. Not knowing is."

The Criterion set also offers a fairly substantial 75-page booklet that includes a 18-page excerpt from the book "Kieslowski on Kieslowski" as well as interviews of the three cinematographers of THREE COLORS. The last page of the booklet also mentions the fact that Pro Logic is needed to hear surround sound, as I mentioned above.

Yes, this Criterion Blu-ray edition is a pricey set, and, unlike the Buena Vista edition, the three films are not sold separately. But the strength of the video and audio qualities and the comprehensive supplements still make this a worthy purchase.

Around here, red, white and blue are known as the colours of the American flag, and they are also the colours of the French flag. But they also are the names of the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's brilliant "Three Colours" trilogy, which has a delicacy that most directors can only dream of. Beautiful, painful, artfully shot, it's a visual feast for anyone who has an appreciation for beauty, subtlety and filmmaking.

In "Bleu," Julie de Courcy (Juliette Binoche) and her family are in a car accident when their brakes fail, and her husband and daughter are killed. Devastated, she leaves her palatial house in the country after a night with her husband's old friend Olivier (Benoît Régent), who has been in love with her for years. And though Julie tries to leave her old life behind, she is pulled in when Olivier starts to finish her husband's last composition -- and he tells her of a side of her husband that she never knew.

In the bitterly funny "Blanc," hairdresser Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is being coldly divorced by his beautiful wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) because she is sexually dissatisfied with him -- and she takes all his money too. But after returning to Poland, Karol rebuilds his life and fortune, and amid a web of killing, seduction and faked death, he comes up with a way to get back at Dominique...

And "Rouge" is the color of love. On her way home from a modelling session, Valentine (Irene Jacob) accidently injures a pregnant dog. The owner is Joseph Kern, (Jean-Louis Trintignant) an embittered ex-judge whose job has left him spiritually adrift, and who now spends his time wiretapping the phones of his neighbors and predicting what will happen in their lives. The friendship between Valentine and Kern grows, even as a young man's current life mirrors what devastated Kern long ago...

The three colours of the French flag symbolize liberty, equality and fraternity -- and these are echoed in the stories of Kieslowski's films. And each of the three movies has its own "feel" -- "Blue" is cool and sensual, "White" was sharp and sexy, and "Red" has a sweetness and richness that is truly moving.

And while most directors are just boring when they do slow, arty direction, Kieslowski infused his direction with sensual beauty and endless light and colour, like a painting come to life. And he intertwined many symbolic images and lingering threads from one movie to the next, whether it's an old lady recycling bottles or a rather surprising finale for "Red" that brings all three movies' protagonists together.

And he saturated the movies with the colour of their title -- blue is sadness, depth and beauty; white is beautiful and pure, stark and blinding; red is passion and warmth. While this may not have been Kieslowski's intention, the constant presence of these colors (a bridal gown, a swimming pool, and so on) add an extra dimension to the emotions in the story, especially the first.

Juliette Binoche is an extremely good actress, and this movie uses her expressiveness as most movies don't. Zamachowski brings an element of humanity and poignancy to what could have been an idiotic character, and I never felt anything but understanding for this guy. And Irene Jacob brings a sweetness and innocence to her role as Valentine (aptly named, considering the title of the movie she stars in) that is rarely seen in modern movies.

In fact, this trilogy was ripe for a Criterion Collection release, and as usual they're lavishing extras on it -- high-def restorations; improved English subtitles; commentary by Juliette Binoche; interviews with actresses, writers, critics, producers and composers; video essays, a few short films and documentaries by Kieslowski, a feature-length documentary on Kieslowski, and the usual booklet of essays and printed interviews.

Kieslowski was an unusual and extremely talented moviemaker, and his "Three Colors" trilogy -- "Bleu," "Blanc" and "Rouge" -- is an exceptional piece of work. We shall not see his like again.

The Three Colors Trilogy (Criterion Collection) is a fantastic box set. The films themselves, especially Blue and Red are incredible. I won't go into what the films are about as I'm sure it's stated several other places. I will say that in these films, the use of color, use of limited dialogue, music, mise-en-scene, and camerawork - we see something that cinema is capable of that no other form of art is. Kieslowski really stretches the limits of filmmaking through deep levels of poetic and metaphoric language and imagery and is able to some up complex relationships in a single shot.

The Criterion Collection has done a great job as usual with a tremendous amount of special features, remastered versions, and a large booklet with interviews and an array of interesting behind the scenes materials. The last DVD has two of Kieslowski's earlier documentaries. I have rarely seen so many special features in a film set. Three Colors: Blue, White, Red is most definitely worth the money.

Kieslowki is my favorite director of all time, so I am very picky about how his work is represented. One thing that I love about Criterion is that they exercise extreme discretion with their restorative process, and so I was confident that certain intentional qualities of the original films would persist in these new versions and I was not disappointed to that end. Each film came through with a relative graininess still intact (good), and wherever Criterion did have to make an exception I felt very comfortable with their choices. Except, as it turned out, when it came to the colors & lighting, two aspects I think anyone could agree are enormously important to these three films. The Miramax set has been criticized here in other reviews as being too dark and over-saturated, but I don't entirely agree. The difference is most obvious in Blue, where cinematographer S'awomir Idziak's trademark use of filters and unconventional lighting has been significantly adjusted, sometimes to the point of almost total removal, in the Criterion set. Anyone who has seen Decalogue V or Double Life of Veronique can readily identify that cinematographer's unique style, and comparing the Criterion and Miramax adaptations, I feel strongly that the few scenes with clearly heavy filter use are better represented in the Miramax version than the Criterion one; ideally a balance between the two end results, weighted slightly to the Miramax side, would have yielded the best results. The Criterion set is still fantastic, and there are many things they did right, but the color and lighting just seemed a lot less impressive in this incarnation of the trilogy which, justifiably, better accents the director's exquisite skill than that of each film's dedicated cinematographer. That said, I'll be keeping my Miramax set alongside the new Criterion version as even after a remarkable transfer the lesser set is still a valuable asset to anyone's collection.

Three Colors is an absolutely remarkable trilogy from Kieslowski, and one of the towering achievements of modern cinema. Despite being nearly twenty years old, all three films still feel contemporary and vital, with each film deepening and unfolding upon repeat viewings. I'm partial to Blue, but all of the films are filled with gorgeous cinematography, fascinatingly drawn characters and beautiful nuanced performances. Looming above and below the surface in all the films are powerful themes suggesting a mysterious and interconnected spirituality. Criterion has done an amazing and thorough blu ray edition. The usual beautiful packaging contains an outstanding video transfer (and the audio quality is superb). Each disc is also loaded with satisfying and illuminating extras. Kieslowski is one of only a small handful of filmmakers capable of combining real, delicate human portraits with a bracing, almost-supernatural existentialism. These films are not to be missed.

Take three amazing films, update them for Blu-Ray, and release them in one set. Success! Like the Miramax release, all three of the Trois Coleurs Trilogie are in one shiny package (though I own the Miramax trilogy which is still available, I wanted to check into the Criterion version and so checked it out from my local library on Blu-Ray). Criterion has done a wonderful job of the HD transfer to the Blu-Ray. Though this is not quite a visual tour de force, there is a lot of detail in these films. The most notable improvement is on Rouge, where the instances of darkness have been improved and sharpened so that the characters no longer wash out into the shadows. It creates a crisp look that is probably the effect that was intended.

The subtitles have been updated and improved upon, as is standard with Criterion editing. There are some light liberties taken with translations in certain points, but it is all done with the intent of bringing across the point that the director was originally intended. But 99% of the subtitling is accurate to what they characters are saying (at least in Bleu and Roughe a French speaking friend told me). And there is a 70+ page book included with all kinds of interesting essays and excerpts.

Now onto the films. Each is a masterpiece by itself. They don't really seem to fit together, and they really don't... but they do. Each is based on one of the colors and themes of the French flag and motto: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (Liberté, égalité, fraternité). Made more interesting since a Polish man directed them!

Bleu was and is my personal favorite. The acting is so strong in this film! The scenes are lovingly shot and the use of music as a storytelling device is amazing. Bleu is all about Liberté, and the liberation of a woman from her tragic, crippling past. She must come to grips with the past and then begin to look towards the future and push forward through anguish.

Blanc is more of a dark comedy that could have been based on a Shakespeare play. A husband takes an interesting and twisted revenge on his wife. It's overall based on égalité (equality) and shows that a marriage (and society) is and should be a partnership of two equals. It's the only film set in the director's native Poland.

Rouge is the final film and it is based on fraternité. In it, two people form an unlikely friendship. The story is heartwarming at the core, and there are some peripheral stories that help illustrate the difference between their friendship and the relationships of people who are seemingly more compatible. The use of light is of particular note in this film. Artistically this is arguably the best of the three.

A modern tour de force of film making. These three films have more feeling than many modern motion pictures and take one back to the glory days of the 50s and 60s French film industry. A wonderful series to add to any collection, and I must say that the Criterion Blu-Ray version is worth the price (which is pretty reasonable on amazon).

Throw away all your lists of New Wave candidates, Krzysztof Kieslowski is either the most unknown genius or the most underrated artist of the last 100 years and while his humble background in Polish TV seem meager compared to Aerosmith music videos, he has bested all his contemporaries and even those who came before with his simple, unique and profound humanistic vision. Kieslowski was a passionate and talented filmmaker who cut his teeth for a very long time on documentaries and small features around Poland. But with the Decalogue - to anyone who has seen it - all the sudden this guy revealed himself as a master. The movies of Kieslowski are neither strictly dramatic nor verbose, but they are purely visual. The films of Kieslowski explore humanity in broad and literate ways without being broad or literal. Instead of cacophonous verbal exchanges, he explorers themes through his characters' gestures, expressions and the light falling on their faces. Some may walk away from a Kieslowski film wondering what they saw. I walked away from every single one with a deep connection to what I had just experienced and I know, I'm far from the only one to experience this. So it is a great joy for Trois Couleurs to arrive on Criterion Blu-Ray to join the unofficial prequel, the Double Life of Véronique.

People have tried all this stuff before. Using color as a visual rhyme or motif is an old art. In film, it was perhaps Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci's master cinematographer, who took the premise to a highly developed and sophisticated theory in practice. Despite what could amount to a gimmick or distracting McGuffin, the movies make spirited, but, as is the case with WHITE, subtle use of the namesake colors employed in their respective chapters. What I love the most about each of these films, is each one is so different an experience from the one that preceded it. The three gel well overall, but individually offer rewards quite distinct from each other. The music for all the films, particularly RED, is deeply moving. The acting by all performers in question flawless. The camera work and lighting is often simple, but calculated and powerful. There are some crane movements in RED to be remembered.

You will forgive the brevity of my summaries, as mysterious nature of each film is not to be spoiled.

BLUE -- This one is both a massive downer and upper. The use of color in this one is easily the most heavy handed and spiritual. The story is also the most internalized, emotionally. This is also the movie that reaches the highest in terms of drama, it is quite serious from beginning to end. BLUE also has the most connections in style and structure with The Double Life of Veronique.

WHITE -- Much like it's predecessor, there are lofty highs and lowly lows in WHITE. However, the lighthearted tone is a massive breath of fresh air to contrast with the unrepentant and solemn BLUE. The color usage here is by far the most subtle and best integrated with the story and setting. The narrative is the most accessible of all and easily the most charming.

RED -- The emotions in this one come in smaller doses than the others, with the best coming in the final hopeful moments. With the liberal and vibrant use of red hues, of the three, this is the most artistic, cerebral, and being a daily photographer myself, the one I connected with the most visually - perhaps for reasons that will become obvious early on and in the final imagery.

The Criterion extras are fantastic, with great behind the scenes montages and actor interviews. The one thing missing from the DVD sets - Annette Insdorf's audio commentary - is thankfully omitted. I think her literal explanations for what unfolds in all three films kinda kill off the joy one gets absorbing the movie through its nebulous visual language, as it was intended. The transfers look great and consistent on my 60 inch plasma. Again, RED in particular, looks positively stunning with a sharpness to rival or surpass anything this side of The Dark Knight's IMAX sequences. It is that good.

For a person to make any one film of this quality and originality would be a triumph, but here it is mesmerizing there are three made in succession over such a short time. For anyone curious about these films, i can say they are perhaps not for the TOP GUN or Transformers crowd. As they were very personal for the director, that is not to say they are completely inaccessible. It is more helpful to look at these films and know they involve you more by telling their simple stories visually than taking a time out every 5 minutes to explain the plot like 99% of stuff that is made these days. Imagine, you fly all the way to Dublin to see Caravaggio's the Taking of Christ and instead of simply taking in each swirl of light or detail from the drama, you are assaulted by a scrolling digital sign akin to cable TV news stock ticker where every dimension, detail and interpretation is shoved down your throat, while a wild laser show blinds you for an hour to the tone endless booming music cues. That is no way to view anything, let alone a celebrated visual work, but it is exactly how the majority of modern films are made.

These movies are the opposite of that.

The movies are masterpieces and there is no need to add anything to reviews you can find all over the net. Easily top movies of the 1990s.

However this Criterion release has serious faults. Blue is misframed. In one scene you can even see microphone getting into the frame, but the whole movie is affected (not just select scenes). White has an audio fault, where the encoded surround will not play properly. Criterion has released corrected White disc, however it is unclear if the Amazon stock has been replaced with the corrected one. While Criterion has acknowledged the framing issue in Blue, there is no word on the corrected release. Apparently the error was made by a company who prepared the master - the issue also applies to the UK release by Artifical Eye based off the same master. Everybody interested in the movie should contact Criterion and ask them to correct the issue. These are masterpieces and deserve proper transfers and not botched ones.

By the way, there are now some reports online that now the set comes with Blue disc misprinted as "Secret Sunshine" DVD, however it indeed contains Blue (however misframed). Someone is really not doing their job right at Criterion.

This Blu Ray edition is very good. Great stories. Wish I could find more foreign films this good. I enjoyed the extras included. Nothing is more pleasant then seeing Julie Delpy in high def.

The masterpieces of Kieslowski have haunted me since I first saw them.

They are Red, Blue and the Double Life of Veronique. White is very good but not in the same class with the other three.

These are not movies for the Hollywood bubble gum crowd, they are very metaphorical and symbolic. There is no "action" in them to speak of.

Each is a spiritual enigma that challenges the viewer to fill in the blanks like a dedicated detective.

If you consider yourself a true lover of cinema these are must-see works of art for the intellectual audience.

All the better on Blu Ray.