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Three Colors Trilogy (Blue / White / Red)

Three Colors Trilogy (Blue / White / Red)

List Price: $39.99
Your Price: $31.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Enthralling
Review: It's amazing that the editorial review from amazon.com should have a mistake, albeit small, regarding the first film of the trilogy. In Red, Juliette Binoche loses her daughter Anna..not her son according to the review. I emphasize this because detail is very important in Bleu, Blanc, Rouge. If you pay attention and put all three movies together, you will understand something about the trilogy that you most probably didn't catch the first time watching it.

I highly recommend this collection in particular because firstly, it's complete. Secondly, the quality is amazing. And thirdly, all three movies can be seen separately but in watching and rewatching the three together, I keep rediscovering the beauty of Kieslowski's work and appreciate it far more than when I first fell in love with it 7 years ago. I highly recommend it to any aficionado of true cinema.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the greatest cinematic experiences of the 1990s
Review: The Three Colors Trilogy comprises 3 superb films (Bleu/Blanc/Rouge) by the late, great director Krzysztof Kieslowski. The films use the symbolism expressed by the colors of the French flag for their themes (liberty, equality, fraternity). The Three Colors is Kieslowski's crowning achievement, and Rouge, his final film, is probably his masterpiece. That's saying something, because some of his previous films (Decalogue, The Double Life of Veronique) are among the greatest films of the last 20 years! I saw Bleu (with Juliette Binoche) a long time ago and was very impressed. It's a sad but beautful movie, about a composer's widow and how she copes with life after his death. Blanc (with Julie Delpy) is about life for a man after he is unceremoniously dumped by his wife; it's the lightest and most comedic of the three films. Rouge (with Irene Jacob) is my favorite and explores the melancholy (and platonic) relationship that develops between a young lady and an older man. Jacob is quite simply a goddess, and if you can tear your eyes away from her long enough to pay attention to the movie, you'll find this is a thematically rich film with solid, subtle performances (Kieslowski was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for Rouge in 1995). I am lucky enough to own a DVD of Rouge which has a ton of extras (making of, deleted scenes, soundtrack samples, trailers, film-making lesson by the director, Cannes festival interviews, extended interviews with editor, director, and *sigh* Irene Jacob). I believe the upcoming Miramax DVDs retain these features (with subtitles), which are in French. More Americans should experience these films. They are so well-made and lovingly crafted that they put to shame all the multi-million dollar, shallow, explosion-fests routinely shovelled out by Hollywood nowadays. Next to Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski's death in the 1990s is one of the most tragic for cinema. Younger filmmakers should hope one day to approach even an iota of the MANY brilliant masterpieces created of these film masters. Watch The Three Colors Trilogy! This is film-making at its finest and totally a 5 STAR recommendation!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A masterpiece of an understudy into human grief!
Review: BLEU (TROIS COLEURS) / France/Poland 1993 (4 STARS)

23 January 2004: The thing that stands out most about Blue is the expression (or lack there of) of grief. How does a woman, seemingly fulfilled by happiness, react when that happiness is yanked away in one telling moment, in a car accident in which both her husband and her daughter pass away? That is the central understudy - a strong woman's attempts at finding purpose in the seeming absence of meaning.
•Mise-en-scene: I watched an interview with Juliette Binoche, where she mentions that Kieslowski refused to make the film unless it had her in it. It's easy to see why. I can't imagine Bleu without Juliette - its not just that she lends her personality to the film...Bleu IS Binoche.
•I was thrown off by the sub-plots of the character's relationships with her mother and the striptease dancer, as I was about the seeming resolution at the end of the film. There were perhaps references that I missed but the 'almost happy' ending left me feeling un-relinquished. Given that I had shared such an intense journey with Julie, it seemed almost improper to accept that she would settle in to a normal relationship again.
•Cinematography: The 1st shot of the film - that of a car tire racing - shot from the bottom of the moving car establishes this as 'not your typical movie'. The sequence-of-shots that follow eerily draw one into the compelling story-telling style of Krzysztof Kieslowski, minimalist in its approach, with a world communicated without dialogue in the first five minutes of the film.
•Blue is not your typical art-house film. Its production values are up there with the best, and the cinematography by Slavomir Idziak (who's craft was recognized by Hollywood in Black Hawk Down), is nothing short of stunning.
•The lighting is low key and soft, and wraps around the characters to create a mood of subtlety. A distinguishing feature is the detail in the shadows. None of the close-ups fully illuminate the protagonist, almost hinting at her vulnerability at facing the light, though the delicate use of eye-lights does well to bring alive her emotions.
•The camera, an intelligently used narrative element, interacts with Julie and partakes in her emotions, respecting them and yet accentuating their intensity as she plods on in an alien world of deep personal purposelessness. The tight close-ups penetrate her soul and force us to delve into Julie's mind and share in her agony.
•Editing: deftly uses match on action to create irony while forwarding the narrative.
•Sound: The pace is hauntingly slow and silence has been used compellingly. It screams with meaning and becomes one of the more important elements as the narrative progresses.
Bleu is not a film you can watch, consume and move on. Either you'll feel that you've totally wasted your time and will probably not be able to sit through (the pivotal occurrence is over within the first five minutes of the film without a single world being spoken, and the rest of the film is essentially the protagonist's psychologically subjective journey) or you'll realize by the time you've reached the end that you'll revisit this film at various points in time, explore and read about it, discuss it with people you respect, and try to get closer to the essence of Kieslowski. For there are two now well-accepted truths about the folklore surrounding Kieslowski, whose reputation continues to mount posthumously...1. that Kieslowski carefully interwove elements that were rich with meaning and social irony, and 2. that figuring those elements out and appreciating their implications is probably a lifelong learning process.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A masterpiece of sight and sound
Review: Kieslowski captured my imagination-he inspired me. From the beautiful film Blue through the redemptive Red, these films are a Picasso. While we may argue over the meanings of each particular subplot, we all agree that these films capture something both simple yet elusive about man. In Red The strange relationship between the retired judge and the model shows the strange pull that certain individuals have over each other. Free will and luck are themes that I took home from my viewing of the Three Colors Trilogy. If you wish to see movies at their absolute finest, watch these jewels and the Double Life of Veronique and anything else by Kieslowski that you can get your hands on. I loved the bonus material on each DVD. The film lessons by the master were great, except I couldn't get my cube of sugar to change colors like Kieslowski. And, oh, the music. If your sick of hollywood drek, watch these gems.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the GREATEST trilogy ever made!!!
Review: This is just beautiful, beautiful master film making from one of the best director of films of any country (Kieslowski). The movies are rightly understated, smart and well crafted. I highly suggest watching them in order BLUE, WHITE, and RED and watch how things just comes perfectly together in RED. Kieslowski excellent use of music in BLUE is nothing short of amazing and is also acts and an unseen character. Plus Juliette Binoche is amazing to watch. She is extremely convincing as a woman in real grief. White starring another well known French actress, Julie Delpy and polish actor Zbigniew Zamachowski is more comedic and the actor plots his revenge on his French ex-wife and then there is the magnificent of Red starring Irene Jacob, as a young model who discovers an ex-judge has been listening on the conversation of those around him. I don't speak a lick of french and the films are in French with English subtitle, but after awhile, you will forget you are reading and become engrossed in just good story tellling. It is not for those who are looking for the type of drama, we here in America are use to, but this is CLEARLY the best foreign films ever made. I recommend this only for older audiences (over 25) probably over 30. There may be a few younger folks who may get into this, but this film is for people who appreciate a nicely even, perhaps slow paced film. I am not trying to be an elitist, far from it. I wish that everyone would view these films for themselves because they are crafted so well and the filming is so smart. The colors represent the color AND meaning of the colors of the French flag. I was sooooo excited when they FINALLY realeased these films on DVD. For you true film fans out there, this is a must own collection.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must have.
Review: Do you study at USC, NYU or AFI?

Save your tuition and watch these movies.

Filmschool for only 30 $.

And watch them again, and again, and again...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good but overrated.
Review: White was the best one. Each movie was filmed wonderfully (Artsy) but the plot lacked. I also think that these movies should have been PG-13 along with that movie Amelia. Why are they R? I know that there light nudity in Amelia but not in Blue, White and Red.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good Quality
Review: Many people/film critics write film reviews here, but I think this should be the place for commenting on DVD quality. If you are interested in buying the films, very likely that you have seen them already, perhaps many times. All three disks are well made, and they include interviews of lead actors, Kieslowski's lectures, selected early films etc. For art film lovers, this is a good deal.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pointless, flashy junk
Review: I just saw Blue, and only because I'm ill with flu could I stay in one place to watch it. I couldn't imagine a healthy person would waste their time watching the rest of the trilogy after sitting through this one. I certainly won't. Posturing eurotrash: flamboyant, simplistic, unsympathetic, flashy, depth-free ... I love Binoche, but even Chocolat, a pure fantasy, was more real than this. And ... she's believable as a confectioner, but it's quite embarassing to watch her pose as a genius composer. What could anyone possibly learn from her imitation? And from the movie's shallow imitation of life?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What could have been
Review: There's no need to say anything about these movies (Blue and Red, classics), or the DVD package (as full as you could wish for, beautiful). But what a shame this is where it ended.

When I think about Kieslowski, I'm reminded of Mozart's symphonic works. For years they produce outstanding work, but all of a sudden, right at the end of their lives the most breathtaking creations appear, in both cases in a very short period of time, and in both cases they died very shortly thereafter at a relatively young age. In Mozart's case it was the 40 and 41st symphonies, completely advanced from any other symphony he wrote, and before they were even performed he was dead. In Kieslowski's case there was a body of accomplished work, but none of it with the production depth of these films, unless you want to classify the Double Life or Veronique along with Mozart's 39th, an apt comparison.

Asking what the 42nd or the 50th symphony would have been like is very much like thinking about his next two or ten movies. Kieslowski was concerned he didn't have anything left to say. But if no one had seen what you previously wrote, and you had reached this level of mastery, even covering the same ground again would have been a revelation, converting sketches into paintings. The great things about Blue and Red are not so much the philosophic content but the craft of movie making, the brilliant touches. It's a painful loss that makes these movies all the more valuable.


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