Three Colors: White
Short description
Karol, a Polish hairdresser living in Paris, is divorced by his French wife Dominique, who tells the court the marriage was never consummated. He loses the salon they owned together, leaving him without money or papers, and he is wanted by the police as well. Unable to return home legally, he is smuggled back to Poland hidden in a suitcase by a fellow Pole he meets abroad. Once in his native country, Karol sets about rebuilding his life and making a fortune, with the aim of settling scores with the woman he still loves.
The film is Krzysztof Kieślowski's thirteenth directed feature in chronological order, following Three Colors: Red, and it forms the second part of his Three Colors trilogy, linked to the color white and its theme of equality. Kieślowski wrote the screenplay with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, and Marin Karmitz produced. Zbigniew Zamachowski plays Karol, Julie Delpy plays Dominique, and Janusz Gajos appears as Mikołaj. The large credited cast and crew reflect an international co-production between Poland, France and Switzerland. Kieślowski treats the material as a cruel comedy shading into the grotesque rather than the more dramatic register of its companion films.
On IMDb the film holds 7.6 out of 10 from more than seventy-eight thousand votes, and on TMDB 7.4 from over a thousand. A critics' rating stands at 7.6 from fifty-four reviews, matching the audience score on IMDb. Its worldwide box office of about one million dollars is modest for a film of its reputation, suggesting its standing rests on video and television circulation rather than cinema attendance.
What's left behind the scenes
- Practically every frame contains some object of white color.
- Julie Delpy later recounted that during filming, director and screenwriter Krzysztof Kieślowski would often sit directly under the camera (so as not to be in the shot) and smoke one cigarette after another. In this way, he could see the actors perfectly from a close distance, effectively as a close-up. According to Delpy, Kieślowski was completely focused on the actor, which, on one hand, was reassuring and helpful, but on the other, was distracting.
- At the beginning of the film, the viewer sees an old man trying to throw a bottle into a recycling bin. The same action is performed by old women in Kieślowski's melodramas 'Three Colors: Blue' (1993) and 'Three Colors: Red' (1994). In the latter case, the main character helps the old woman, and the bottle makes it into the bin.
- According to Julie Delpy, in the cell, her character says the following in sign language: 'We'll leave together when I'm released, right? Or we'll stay here and get married again.'
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
