Three Colors: Red

Three Colors: Red (Trois couleurs : Rouge, 1994) is Krzysztof Kieślowski's drama, well worth watching online on iFILM. A Geneva model named Valentine runs over a dog and brings it back to its owner. From that small accident grows a friendship unlike any other.

The owner turns out to be a retired judge living alone, secretly eavesdropping on his neighbors' phone calls. Valentine is appalled. Yet the two strangers fall into a long, searching conversation about guilt, love and the chances people let slip away. A second thread follows a young lawyer next door whose life quietly rhymes with the old man's past, and the two stories drift toward each other almost without notice.

The closing chapter of the Three Colors trilogy, where red stands for fraternity, also marked Kieślowski's farewell — he never directed again. The film picked up three Academy Award nominations, and cinematographer Piotr Sobociński washed every frame in a restless red that binds the picture tighter than its plot. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Irène Jacob carry this hushed, nearly plotless story so completely it's hard to look away. Slow, thoughtful cinema for patient viewers. Stream Three Colors: Red (1994) online on iFILM.