DVD Afternoon Podcast #85: Three Cheers For The Blue, White, And Red

The week's major DVD release is Criterion's lovingly assembled new edition of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy—but how well has this arthouse sensation of the early ’90s stood the test of time? That's the question posed by this week's episode of the DVD Afternoon podcast, and if you believe Heather Noel, the answer is very well indeed, especially Three Colors: Blue and the central performance by Juliette Binoche as a superstar composer's grieving widow. My response was slightly more ambivalent—these are three superbly made films and Binoche is every bit as magnificent in Blue as Heather says she is, but I was left wondering if this trilogy's attempt to demonstrate the interconnectedness of human life and the quirky vagaries of fate was so much New Age folderol. Whether your opinion of Kieslowski's work is closer to Heather's or to mine, I hope you'll at least find our epic-length discussion of these three fascinating movies to be stimulating.

Elsewhere in the show, I report on my viewing of Seijun Suzuki's whacked-out 1963 yakuza flick Youth of the Beast and bring Heather up to date on season two of Downton Abbey, while Heather talks about the irresistible allure of Gabriel Byrne in season three of In Treatment. And of course we also round up the week's other most noteworthy new DVDs and Blu-Rays.

Here's the breakdown:

0:00 — Intro/Youth of the Beast/In Treatment/Downton Abbey redux
12:15 — Zbigniew Preisner, "Song For The Unification Of Europe (Julie's Version)" (from the soundtrack of Three Colors: Blue)
13:32 — The Three Colors Trilogy
41:30 — Zbigniew Preisner, "Meeting The Judge" (from the soundtrack of Three Colors: Red)
42:30 — Other noteworthy new DVDs and Blu-Rays/Outro

This supersized trailer for Youth of the Beast gives you a good sense of the movie's off-kilter energy ("Every Kind Of Vice!"):



Here's the trailer for Starbuck, which Heather talks about in our final segment:



And here's the trailer for Bellflower, which I cautiously recommend during the same segment:

You can subscribe to DVD Afternoon through iTunes, or you can download this week's episode directly by clicking here.

And if you'd like to comment on the show, respond to our reviews, or suggest other movies for Heather and me to talk about on the air, you can reach us at dvdafternoon [at] gmail [dot] com. We'll be taking next week off, but we'll be back the week after that with discussions of the introspective low-budget sci-fi drama Another Earth, Miranda July's daringly annoying The Future, and the cult horror-comedy Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. If you've seen those films and want to send us your thoughts about them, or if you'd like to add to our discussion of The Three Colors Trilogy (or ask us any questions about movies and DVDs in general), we'd love to hear your thoughts (and possibly read them on-air).