Almost There: Juliette Binoche in "Three Colors: Blue"

by Cláudio Alves

With Pieces of a Woman having premiered on Netflix, Vanessa Kirby becomes one of the big contenders in this year's Best Actress race. She previously won the Volpi Cup, joining a selection of other actresses who managed to turn a win at Venice into genuine Oscar buzz. However, not every Volpi champion is as lucky as to get a nomination. In 1993, Juliette Binoche managed to earn the Cup for her studies of loss in the first part of Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy about Europe and the French Revolutionary ideals. Still, when Oscar nomination morning arrived, Binoche's searing work in Three Colors: Blue was not found amid AMPAS' choices…

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"Three Colors: Red" at 25

by Lynn Lee

Transfixed.  Transported.  Exhilarated.  These are words I don’t use lightly when I’m talking about movies, but they all apply to my reaction the first time I saw the final installment of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy.  And in large measure they still do.  Even if the initial wonder has given way to a comforting familiarity, few films capture the universal human yearning for connection and kinship (or fraternité, the unifying theme of Red) as vibrantly yet delicately as this one.

I first saw Red some years after its initial release, at a special screening at the university I was attending.  I went in knowing very little about the film except that the friend I went with had seen it before and spoke of it in glowing terms.  He noted that in an ideal world I’d have seen the preceding chapters, Blue and White, but thought I’d enjoy Red even without having done so.

He was right. 

In fact, I occasionally wonder if Blue and White – both of which I admire rather than love – suffered by comparison when I saw them later.  Perhaps I’d have a different take if I’d watched the trilogy in the intended order.  But I don’t think it would have altered my strong personal affinity for Red, which quickly became one of my all-time favorite films...

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