Product Details

• Actors: Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Maria Janiec, Jerzy Braszka, Janusz Gajos
• Directors: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Piotr Studzinski
• Writers: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Agnieszka Holland, Edward Klosinski, Edward Zebrowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Miramax
• DVD Release Date: March 4, 2003
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008976X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,879 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "White (Three Colors Trilogy)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

White is the second of witty Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowki's "three colors" trilogy Blue, White, and Red--the three colors of the French flag, symbolizing liberty, equality, and fraternity. White is an ironic comedy brimming over with the hard laughs of despair, ecstasy, ambition, and longing played in a minor key.

Down-and-out Polish immigrant Karol Karol is desperate to get out of France. He's obsessed with his French soon-to-be ex-wife (Before Sunrise's Julie Delpy), his French bank account is frozen, and he's fed up with the inequality of it all. Penniless, he convinces a fellow Pole to smuggle him home in a suitcase--which then gets stolen from the airport. The unhappy thieves beat him and dump him in a snowy rock pit. Things can only get better, right? The story evolves into a wickedly funny antiromance, an inverse Romeo and Juliet. Because it's in two foreign languages, the dialogue can be occasionally hard to follow, but some of the most genuinely funny and touching moments need no verbal explanation. --Grant Balfour

Product Description

A seductive story of love and obsession, WHITE won nationwide critical acclaim for its intoxicating blend of eroticism and intrigue. Directed by acclaimed director Krzysztof Kieslowski (BLUE, RED, THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE), and featuring sexy Julie Delpy (TV's ER, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS), WHITE is the mysterious tale of a man whose life disintegrates when his beautiful wife of six months deserts him. Forced to begin anew, he rebuilds his life, only to plan a dangerous scheme of vengeance against her! Winner of the Best Director Award at the Berlin Film Festival, WHITE is a story of dark, illicit passions -- one of the year's most provocative big-screen releases!

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A film of love & divorce, life & death, August 29, 1998

By 

L. L. Moore "raincitykitty" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This film is the second in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Trois Couleurs" trilogy ("Blue," "White," and "Red," after the colors of the French flag). While it contains some quite surprising plot twists, overall it doesn't have the same emotional impact as the first and last movies do.

Zbigniew Zamachowski plays Karol Karol, a Polish immigrant living in Paris with his wife, Dominique (Julie Delpy). As the film opens, Karol and Dominique are in divorce court; she wants the divorce, he doesn't. She wins, and he is left with nothing but a large suitcase -- in which he manages to send himself back to Poland, with unexpected results.

While white is traditionally the color of marriage, in this film it is the color of divorce. Throughout the movie the sky is a bleak, almost colorless shade of white, reflecting Karol's mood. The divorce proceedings take place in a white marble courtyard, and after the hearing Dominique drives away in a white car. When Karol returns to Poland, the countryside is buried under a layer of snow. More than that, the color symbolizes the sterility of their marriage: Dominique's grounds for divorce are that the marriage has never been consummated.

For the rest of the film, Karol struggles to rebuild his life and to win back Dominique. The movie is enjoyable, with highly original subplots. The actors turn in fine performances, and the direction (as one would expect from Kieslowski) is intriguing without being heavy-handed. However, for a film that focuses on such emotional topics as love and death, it fails to rouse intense emotions in the viewer. END

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Among Equals, July 27, 2000

By 

The Loved One "curiouser and curiouser!" (Lovely Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In downtown Warsaw, where so much of "White" is set, there was an electric sign celebrating Poland's recent release from the Iron Curtain of communism by praising Bill Clinton and splashing around an American flag. The electric sign, though, was not like the monumental Panasonic sign in New York's Times Square. Rather it was more comparable to the signs composed of light bulbs that can be found in major league baseball stadiums. I thought of that sign many times throughout "White," how meager it looked in a nation already so deprived. "White" deals with the disillusionment and failure of one man who represents the disappointment of a nation. When the protagonist, Karol, returns to Warsaw from Paris, after being rejected and betrayed by his French wife, Dominique, through divorce and infidelity, and by the French court, whom Karol believes has cheated him in the divorce by giving him nothing because he cannot speak French (both a clear metaphor for the West's disregard of Poland), he is greeted by a city where bands of thieves roam the land like the Middle Ages, and gangster capitalists own everything and can buy anything. Karol then aspires to become part of this amoral ruling class, thereby becoming more equal than anybody else. In "White," besides the inequitable wealth between Karol and his fellow Polish countrymen, there is an intricate interplay between the affluence of the West and the lowered expectations of Poland. In Paris, Karol and is wife owned a clean well-lit salon, but back in Warsaw, his brother's salon has little more than a gaudy electric sign to distinguish it from the days of communist rule, and it is located along a muddy, unpaved road. A loan shark, who hires Karol to protect him, gives Karol what amounts to a cap gun as his weapon. And even an expensive office building in downtown Warsaw only has a few phone jacks. This comparison is perhaps Kieslowski's message that there is no perfect equality, either within a nation (as demonstrated through both Karol's amassed wealth and influence, and the discrimination against his at the hands of the French judicial system) or between nations. Kieslowski also suggests, through the relationship between Karol and Dominique, that perhaps love can bridge this gap.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mouse's revenge, May 15, 2003

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: White [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Mouse's revenge

WHITE is one in a trilogy of French films also comprising BLUE and RED.

As the film opens, Polish emigre Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) arrives in a Parisian court for his divorce hearing. His wife, the ravishing Dominique (Julie Delpy), is giving him the toss because he no longer satisfies her sexually, although she admits he was hot stuff when they first met in Warsaw.

After the dissolution of the marriage is decreed, Dominique dumps Karol's possessions, all contained in a large trunk, into the car park and drives off. Karol soon discovers that she's also cut off his access to their joint bank account. Karol, now down and out and soliciting handouts in the Paris Metro, absorbs the abuse without any overt sign of anger, even after his ex figuratively pushes his nose into the fact that she's copulating with another man. Karol is the meekest and most inoffensive of men. Let's not mince words; he's a wimp.

With the help of another Pole, Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos), Karol returns to Warsaw by an unusual route. Once arrived, he literally ends up in a ditch. Rock bottom is a hard place.

Karol is an award-winning hairdresser, and he begins working in his brother's beauty shop. Through good luck and a series of shrewd moves unrelated to the hair trade, he becomes rich. And it's also clear that he remains obsessed with Dominique.

WHITE is somewhat less subtle than BLUE, and therefore demands less cerebral exercise on the part of the viewer; BLUE tries too hard to be obscure. Karol is an enormously endearing character, much like a puppy that's been kicked. And, though we don't know what his grand strategy is, we recognize that he has a plan that he's clearly implementing. The lovely Juliette Binoche in BLUE is a more aloof figure as she struggles to recover from a family tragedy, and it's only from close-ups of her face that the audience can infer what's going on inside. WHITE is thus, to this viewer, the more satisfying of the two.

Zamachowski's performance is solid, and Mikolaj is the friend that anybody could hope for. And Delpy's Dominique is eye candy that would drive any sober man on a fevered quest.

It's said that revenge is a dish that's best eaten cold, and WHITE suggests such a meal. The very last scene strongly implies, however, that Karol ultimately lacks the requisite dispassion.