Three Colors: Red

99 minutes • 1994 • 8.1

Kieslowski has with Three Colors: Red finished his color theology of the fundamental concept of the French Revolution; freedom, equality and brotherhood.

The young photo model Valentine accidentally runs down a dog, it gets hurt and she drives it home to the owner. This is how she meets retired judge Kern and through the dog the two develop a friendship. Kern lives secluded, and his great passion is to monitor other people's privacy through telephone bugging. Valentine is shocked by this business and tries to make him quit.

As in so many of Kieslowski's films, several stories are intertwined. The young law student, Auguste, relives Kern's youth, both when he is betrayed by his girlfriend and by a strange episode in connection with his exam. Without knowing each other, Valentines and August's roads cross several times. The symbolic union between Valentine and Kern, the brotherhood, is finally experienced by Valentine and August meeting, and by Kern breaking out of his isolation.

Three Colors: Red is a worthy end to the tricolor trilogy; romantic, symbolic and not least an aesthetic pleasure.