Following ‘Blue’, ‘White’ is the second instalment of Kieslowski’s ‘Three Colours’ Trilogy of the French revolutionary ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. ‘White’ stands for equality (and much else besides) in a droll tale of fortune reversed for which Kieslowski won Berlin’s Best Director award.

Split between Paris and Warsaw —perhaps the most biting and playful entry in the trilogy—is a darkly funny revenge film about post-communist Poland’s position in the burgeoning European Union, as well as a strangely moving, lyrical portrait of tortured love. Zbigniew Zamachowski plays Karol Karol, an endearingly Chaplinesque schlemiel who adores his wife (Julie Delpy) with such passion that he’s rendered sexually impotent in her arms. After she strips him emotionally and materially, he returns to Poland, where various droll and highly lucrative developments permit him to turn the tables on the woman who is forever imprisoned in his heart.

Krzysztof Kieślowski's award-winning trilogy explores the French Revolutionary ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood, and their relevance to the contemporary world. It is a snapshot of European life at a time of reconstruction after the Cold War, reflected through the filmmaker's moralist view of human nature and illuminated by each title's palette colour.