Like "George and Tammy" but unlike "Scenes from a Marriage"
and _Three Colors: Blue_, the second installment of Kieslowski's
Trilogy _White_ features many flashbacks. (By sheer coincidence,
both "Tammy" and _White_ have very intimate hair-dressing scenes
as well!) The flashbacks in the last episode of "Tammy" compare
Jones and Wynette singing the same songs in concerts decades apart;
while brief and effective, they cannot help being a touch cloying.
Kieslowski does it much better; his flash-backs are often used
ironically, and balanced with flash-forwards and foreshadowing
scenes. _White_ can be said to follow "reverse Polish" logic,
with events almost always depicted long before their relationships
are given.

_Blue_ is self-consciously arty, ethereal, while _White_ is
at times shot like a documentary, the camera low to the ground.
Binoche's Julie has discarded most material possessions, is
left to her own (mental) device. Zamachowski's Karol in _White_
is all about his props. They range from the 2-Franc coin that
spawns his entrepreneur empire, to the comb he uses for both
hair duty and music, to the broken-down statue of a white
goddess which reminds him of ex-wife Dominique (Delpy), who
jilts him and leaves him homeless in Paris. (The statue hardly
does Delpy's icy beauty justice; Kieslowski takes pains to
highlight her architectural, rounded high forehead, which
could be every sculptor's dream. Too bad the character has
the soul of a courtesan.)

And then there is the suitcase used to smuggle him back to
Poland, promptly stolen by thugs who leave him for dead.
Welcome to the crass, materialistic "unified Europe" lauded
at the end of _Blue_! At least he has a roof to sleep
under: his brother (Jerzy Stuhr) takes him back in,
provided he is willing to cut hair again. Everything is
a transaction now. (The older woman clients still swoon
over him.) But he dreams of Dominique, and revenge, and
for those he needs a healthy bank account from which he
derives all his virility and self-worth.

Zamachowski, more well-known for comedies, plays Karol
as a nervous wreck -- even after he transforms himself
into a slick-haired tycoon. The wild-eyed Karol treads
a moral fine-line all film long. He agrees to kill for
money and frames Dominique for murder, but each time he
leaves his victim an escape clause. The entire Trilogy
is packed with Resurrection symbolism; none is more
exhilarating than Mikolaj (a Stephen-Rea-like Janusz
Gajos) coming back to life and slaloming on the frozen
banks of the Vistula. Once again courtrooms play central
roles, with the parochialism and inherent biases of
the French and Polish legal systems laid bare in a film
supposed to showcase "Equality." After all, co-writer
Krzysztof Piesiewicz is also a practising Polish lawyer.

Piesiewicz has infrequently dabbled in screenplays after
working with Kieslowski; his own 2018 trilogy starring
Hélène de Fougerolles sounds fascinating, but is impossible
to find. Zamachowski has remained immensely successful
in Poland, and with the dominance of Polish titles on
Netflix, one or two is even available in the US. Janusz
Gajos has likewise remained active -- I would love to see
him squared against Stephen Rea -- but Aleksnder Bardini,
who has a minor but memorable role and plays the conductor
in _The Double Life of Veronique_, passed away in 1995
at age 82. Julie Delpy turned into an accomplished
filmmaker known for her comedies, but her _My Zoe_ is a
dramatic standout worthy of the moral complexity of
Kieslowski's films. One wonders what the late Polish master
would think of the modern day Poland. _White_ is generally
considered a light-hearted Divertimento sandwiched by two
Kieslowski heavy-weights, but it plays an integral part in the
Trilogy, and its tragicomedic brio will never be forgotten.

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