The Flag of France comes in three colors: blue, white and red, each with its own symbolic significance.
The Polish film master Krzystów Kiyeslovski, using the colors of the French flag and a group of French actors, composed the "Blue, White and Red Trilogy".
"Blue" is about freedom;
"White" is about equality;
"Red", on the other hand, is about fraternity.
The story begins with fraternity.
After 10 minutes of daily routine building, model Valentine accidentally hits and injures a puppy while driving. She could have ignored it, but compassion prompted him to save the puppy and find its owner, Retired Judge Joseph.
The encounter of the two characters changes their respective destinies.
Valentine is puzzled by Joseph's behavior until the third meeting, when Joseph changes. Valentine began to understand that Joseph was not just a retired judge, but a lonely old man. She then made a decision to take a boat to the UK to meet her long-distance boyfriend.
Joseph passed the time by tapping a neighbor's phone after retirement, and in the face of Valentine's questioning, he initially disagreed. It was just that he did not expect that this woman had broken into his house and also into his life. Valentine makes him feel that there is love in this world, and he needs to do something to prove that his feelings are true.
Understanding the conversation between the two is the key to unlocking the theme of the film.
Valentine represents the ideal of kindness and fraternity, which Kieslowski uses color to indicate. Everywhere Valentine went, the background was always red.
Red furniture.
Red photographic set.
Red walls, and so on.
Red is fraternity, which can imply that Valentine's fraternity is affecting the world.
Joseph represents the cruelty of the world. He has tried many cases, seen too many kinds of things in the world, and chosen to close himself off, which is somewhat psychologically defensive. Interestingly, he left a door, and Valentine walked in through it.
When fraternity and cruelty collide, contradictions quickly begin to emerge.
Joseph's neighbors have all sorts of problems. Valentine, aren't you very fraternal? Now that you've heard their problems, why not help?
Valentine tries to help the family whose husband is cheating, only to find that rushing to intervene will only hasten the breakdown of the family.
It's always okay to help that mother-in-law who has no food, right? Unexpectedly, her mother-in-law was not short of food at all, she just wanted to see her daughter. Valentine can convince her daughter, but how many children can she convince with her parents?
In a way, Joseph is not wrong, the world is so cruel. Fraternity simply cannot solve all problems.
Valentine says Joseph is wrong because she believes that human nature is inherently good. She rescued a dog, helped the old woman with limited mobility to throw away the garbage, and resolved the misfortunes of the world with kindness and love.
Unconsciously, she also opened Joseph's heart, and the lonely retired judge finally discovered the good side of her own human nature.
Told that the dog he had raised for many years was going to have a baby, Joseph was touched to the weak part of his heart. He actually has valuable compassion. The actor Jean-Louis Trentinion's performance from cold to tender is just right.
Sometimes people feel powerless in life, so they do something wrong. When people find their goodness and their moral boundaries, things will naturally return to their original tracks.
Valentine, like her neighbors, has all sorts of troubles in her life. Her long-distance boyfriend questions herself endlessly, and her brother is addicted to drugs and is featured in the newspapers, but even so, she is helpful and sticks to a regular life. She believes that neither her brother nor her boyfriend is malicious, and that everything can be salvaged and returned to the "good side".
Finally Valentine and Joseph reached an agreement.
Joseph said, "The only dividing line between right and wrong is between a thought." ”
Valentine's boyfriend gets angry at the thought, his brother gets drugged in the thought, Joseph engages in wiretapping in the thought, and the man and woman cheat in the thought.
Joseph didn't forgive these mistakes, he couldn't let go of the mistakes he had made, so he closed himself off and made mistakes.
Valentine tolerates and faces these mistakes, and the boyfriend and brother things turn around. Fraternity cannot solve all problems, but it can provide an outlet for a problem so that the problem does not get worse.
She is really an activist. He said that he went to the eavesdropper's house to expose Joseph, and immediately went; he said that he was going to meet his boyfriend, and immediately booked a ferry ticket. Her fraternity is not a casual talk, but a deed.
Fraternity requires action to be practical.
"Red" is the only film in the Blue-White-Red Trilogy that uses a multi-line narrative. In addition to Valentine and Joseph's encounter, Kieslowski arranged a "reincarnation line" .
The young lawyer Auguste had a successful career and a sweet love, but soon encountered setbacks in his life. His encounter corresponds to Joseph's secret. As Joseph's past experiences unfold, the audience is surprised to find that the experiences of two people who are also in the legal profession are the same.
Some commentators have said that "Blue" blurs impression and reality, "White" blurs ideal and reality, and "Red" blurs reality and surreality. Indeed, the plot of "Red" is full of topics about "destiny".
For example, Valentine's encounter with her boyfriend was a coincidence, and if she hadn't run out that day during the break, there would have been no story in the movie at all.
Valentine and Auguste don't live far apart, they have a common hobby, they like the same CD in the same store, but they don't have any chance of getting to know each other. If they could get to know each other, it would probably be valentine and Joseph.
We can even think of the film as a crossover movie. Joseph is actually an aging Auguste who travels back in time and "makes" his own past with one hand. He said that dreaming of Valentine in her 50s was actually seeing her in the future.
The coincidences and impermanences of fate are always beyond human imagination.
The things you are experiencing may have been experienced by others, and you have rubbed shoulders with people of your interest countless times but cannot know each other, and your life has taken a hundred and eighty-degree turn only because of a small incident by chance.
This is also the special place of "Red" in the trilogy, in addition to the theme of "fraternity", there is an additional layer of "occult" performance.
The ending of "Red" is also responsible for summarizing the fate of the protagonists of the trilogy.
Once shipwrecked, 7 survivors, 6 protagonists actually met coincidentally. It's like Marvel's avengers.
Their salvation not only means that their lives have been saved, but they have also been saved.
And that movie in 1994, in addition to "The Shawshank Redemption", "Forrest Gump", "Pulp Fiction", and originally "The Red of the Blue,White-Red Trilogy".
The law does not accept innocent people. - "The Red of the Blue-White-Red Trilogy"