A man seeks revenge on his ex-wife after a humiliating divorce proceeding.
This is the middle installment of the "Three Colors" trilogy created by Kieslowski and co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz. For background on the trilogy and Kieslowski's career please see the entry for last months' screening of Blue:
White strikes a balance between the Eastern Europe where Kieslowki hails from (specifically Warsaw, Poland), and the post-reunification New Europe represented by Paris, where the beginning of the film is set. The film's title relates to its correspondent in the French flag, representing the ideal of "equality", and explores this on a surface level via the fractured marriage of the two main characters. One of the various subtexts looks at the wide economic disparity between the countries newly emerging from behind the now-fallen Iron Curtain and their Western/Central European counterparts, as well as the means by which capitalism has permeated the former.
Starring in the film is Polish actor Zbigniew Zamachowski and French actress Julie Delpy (now a writer-director herself). Behind the camera is cinematographer Edward Kłosiński, who shot one of the episodes for Kieslowski's Dekalog television series. Another key collaborator is composer Zbigniew Preisner, who wrote music for all three films in the trilogy.
While the setting of Warsaw is more grim than the cities featured in the two bookend films, White has a distinctly lighter tone, and is widely regarded as the "comedy" of the series. As with Blue and Red, coincidence and irony are abound, but here used to darkly humorous effect.
The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won Kieslowski the Silver Bear award for Best Direction. It was received positively by critics across the board, even if not held in as high regard as its predecessor.
Running time is approx. 90 minutes.
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