Every Kieslowski movie is like a single bright note backed up by a powerful chord. In “Blue,” for example, the tenor note is “liberty” but it rides on a massive “renunciation” chord. The note in front gets its ring and special timber from the chord in the background. That foreground-background relationship is very masterfully handled by the great Polish master of moving images.

In “White,” the second of the “Three Colors” trilogy, the front note is “equality” but the chord in the background is “desire.” Kieslowski takes us through a tragic-comic ride; the roller-coaster turns of human desire and how it effects our relationships of equality and inequality.

In many ways the first and the last images of the film (a locked suitcase rolling on a conveyor belt, and, a jail cell, respectively) are the perfect metaphors for the entrapment of souls who confuse selfish desires and the wants of the ego for equality and human dignity.

“White” is the story of Karol Karol, a Polish hairdresser (brought to life with matchless genius by Zbigniew Zamachowski) married to a French beauty Dominique (the ethereal Julie Delpy).

The opening scene is that of a divorce court where a French judge decides for a divorce since even Karol admits that he could not “consummate” his marriage to Dominique. And if you watch carefully what is going on in the background, you will notice that the Julie character from “Blue,” the first film of the trilogy, is trying to enter the court room but is turned away by the police at the door! What a touch of genius!

That’s exactly the scene in the first movie when Julie tries to follow her husband’s attorney-lover into a courtroom but is denied access. What we now learn is that Julie was actually trying to enter the same court room where Karol’s divorce proceedings were taking place! How’s that for some inter-connectedness of life?!

Kieslowski-the-Illusionist performs another visual sleight-of-hand by using the same “recycling bin” scene from “Blue.”

This time, though, it is a very old man who is trying to push a bottle from the opening of the bin which is again too high for his bent-over frail frame. Life is not fair and there is no regard for equality even when it comes to designing public receptacles.

However, the responses of our protagonists are completely different (in line with another Kieslowski theme – “life is full of accidents and surprises but what matters is our reactions to them.”)

In “Blue,” Julie is not even aware of the old woman struggling to push the bottle into the bin. She is lost to her own grief and inner music, sitting eyes closed on a park bench.

In “White,” on the other hand, Karol notices the man but just chuckles and shakes his head. He is not as tragic a figure as Julie. So his reaction is one of amusement and polite disregard.

After losing Dominique and all his money in Paris, Karol returns to Poland through the unexpected help of another compatriot, Mikolaj (played with great reserve by Janusz Gajos), a mysterious memory-master and card player who comes up with a chilling proposal for Karol to make some money. But Karol turns him down, at least for the time being.

After returning to Poland through a serious of hilarious events (which proves Kieslowski’s bona-fides for laugh-out comedy as well) Kolar starts from scratch at his old family hairdressing salon where he is eagerly anticipated by his old clients. In the Polish sequences, the “white” Polish winter and snow becomes a metaphor for the “white” of cold equality (with Dominique) that keeps evading Kolar all through his life.

We are reminded of the thin conceptual line that separates the “white” of purity from the “white” of death.

After successfully pulling through a clever and daring business ruse, Kolar proves that, as downtrodden and beaten up as he might be, he still has the smarts to outmaneuver the big boys in their own real estate development games.

In the second part of “White” we see Kolar as a successful businessman, driven around in his chauffeur-driven Volvo and sporting a slick Gordon Gekko (“Wall Street (1987”) greed-is-good look. In this venture he is accompanies by Mikolaj as his business partner. Kolar is busy buying and selling things, walking through huge warehouses like a tornado and barking orders right and left.

But underneath it all, Kolar is still trying to get back even with Dominique, his one and only love and obsession in life.

So the resourceful Kolar comes up with a plot to guarantee Dominique’s return to Poland and the plot works. However, it actually works too well…

And the film ends with Dominique realizing her love for Kolar and the two affirming their love for one another through barriers that they could never have anticipated.

Each main character, Kolar and Dominique, ends up at an undesirable point in life; a place which is totally unexpected and unplanned.

Yet the law of the “unintended consequences” only helps them to realize their mutual love for one another.

At last they are each other’s equals in that acknowledgement, no matter what the courts and authorities say, and no mater how many times in the past Dominique has withheld that acknowledgement from Kolar.

And in that sense perhaps they are also at long last free, no matter where they may be physically.

A must see for all movie fans. Rates 10 out of 10 in my book.