By Simon Butler
Red is undeniably pretentious. It serves as a conceit, as do its sister films in director Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy: White and Blue. The movies are supposedly artistic materializations of the three colors of the French flag, which represent the concepts Liberty (Blue), Equality (White), and Fraternity (Red). So Red has certain allegorical connotations, thereby giving it pretensions to themes of unworldly importance, which the film doesn't need, as great art does not have to advertise. It stands by itself, as a fine film Ð not a masterpiece, but a very smart entertainment.
And although the stars of White (Julie Delpy) and Blue (Juliette Binoche) do appear briefly in Red, one doesn't have to see the two previous flicks to enjoy the last film in the trilogy. Red stars Irene Jacob, who is a wonderfully powerful actress. She is also an unusually gorgeous human being, with a long nose, dark eyes, and sensuous lips - she seems to be one of the many European movie beauties whose uncharacteristic looks are so valued in the Old World, but unpublicized here (don't ask how Sharon Stone is bigger in America than Catherine Deneuve). The male lead opposite her is played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, the now middle-aged, but still handsome star of the 1960's films A Man and a Woman and Z. Both are quite brilliant in Red, which seems to be, more or less, a showcase for them. The movie itself is about fraternal love: Jacob plays a Geneva model named Valentine, whose boyfriend is in England, and whose love for him (and vice versa) is becoming tenuous. She runs over a dog on the street and takes it to its owner, a retired judge (Trintignant), who seems apathetic. After Valentine takes the dog to the hospital and the veterinarian heals the animal, it runs back to the judge's house. Valentine, following it, renews her acquaintance with the seemingly irritating fellow. She discovers that he has a contraption - a short-wave radio of some sort - that allows him to eavesdrop on the telephone conversations of his neighbors. At first, she is disgusted, but for some reason, she eventually becomes interested in him, as he is in her. And she finds he has a sad past, but a past very similar to someone she is oddly familiar with.
Red is concerned with fraternity, and the relationship between Valentine and the judge is quite reminiscent of the feelings between an older brother and a younger sister: there is a kind of indeterminable love between them which doesn't become consummated, and there's a soft jealousy mixed in with the pride on one sibling's part, when the other finds happiness. Valentine herself has a brother who is apparently involved in drugs, and the judge seems to be empathetic to her troubles, as if he were a more responsible older relative. But the film also seems to be about obligation - the judge listens to what his neighbors (his human brothers) say, and has the power to destroy their lives or save them based on his knowledge of their private conversations. What are his real duties to his brothers, and to society?
The color red does appear in this movie, contrary to what one would expect in a deliberately artsy film. Valentine's profile on a red background is one of the recurring images, as it is placed up on a very prominent billboard in the city. The cinematography is slick and brilliant, often zipping away quickly down phone lines or up to windows, and the lighting is studied and compositional, like a good painting (the scene where Trintignant turns on the light, after being in darkness for just a short period of time, is literally blinding). The music, by Zbigniew Preisner, is beautiful and quite Ravel-like, and the film's sound is also fascinating, making the best use of the footsteps, the electronic noises of radios and phones, and even the panting of the dog. In a way, the film is also about listening, and the appeal of sound itself; Kieslowski's ideologies are certainly interesting, but calling attention to them is the film's main fault. Such showmanship can be overlooked, because Red is of such a high quality, but if his future films get any more affected, the audiences will be seeing red quite often.