We’re getting very close to the end of “Three Colours: White” and it’s been a pretty entertaining ride so far, hasn’t it? We’ve seen some old friends from The Dekalog …we’ve witnessed a comic redemption story that featured some wry commentary about the wild west nature of post-wall Eastern Europe. It’s moved briskly — there’s some interesting alignment with “The Double Life of Veronique.”

Well, I have some bad news for you … this is the last good segment of the film. Actually, even here the plot starts to unravel … and in fairness, there is one good scene in the next segment. But In my opinion, the final 15 minutes or so of “Three Colours: White” are the low point in Kieslowski’s filmography. The final act doesn’t make sense, it’s mean spirited, and given that an element of this story will return for the final segment of “Three Colours: Red,” this ending doesn’t set up that concluding moment at all … you could logically argue that the wrap up of the trilogy would be impossible given how this film concludes. We have to rely on people generally dismissing this movie as the low point of the trilogy and focusing on the far superior “Blue and “Red.”

Ok, so let’s get on with it … the last segment ended with Mikolaj commenting that Karol will need a new passport. This segment opens with shots of his current passport being shredded … then Karol’s driver being handed the death certificate. He brings it back to the car, which has Karol waiting in back. Was this indicative of how easy it was to obtain a death certificate in Poland in the early 90s — just send anyone with a passport, give it up and, voila, declared dead?

You would think you would need to produce a body first, but now Karol realizes he needs one for the funeral … his driver repeats the line from earlier in the film that these days, you can buy anything … and asks if a body from Russia will suit his purposes. Given how extensive anti-Russian attitudes were throughout Eastern Europe at the time, I”m sure this joke was appreciated.

At night, an 18 wheeler truck parked next to them, the driver exchanges cash with someone … a bloody corpse in a casket is on the sidewalk, Karol walks by it. After the transaction, his driver tells him that it was someone who stuck his head out of a streetcar took much … making his face unrecognizable. Karol finds it all gruesome.

Michel de Montaigne had a theory in his essay “Cowardice is the Mother of All Cruelty” that people who are easily swayed by emotional scenes, something disgusting or sentimental, are prone to the greatest cruelty because they feel the need to cover up their weakness with excessive strength. I suppose Karol in these scenes is giving us proof of this.

He’s easily startled when Mikolaj comes into the office late at night, even though he knew he was coming. There Mikolaj gives him a fake passport and informs him of all the arrangements made for him to fly to Hong Kong. That’s really where he’s going to start over? The world’s most expensive city and another place where he doesn’t know the language?

Well, ok. Now onto the funeral. All of his friends and family have shown up … and there’s Dominique right in the middle of them. The casket goes in the ground, people slowly disburse. But Dominique stays. Karol, hiding behind a tree, pulls out a pair of binoculars and sees that Dominique is crying. Once again, cowardice and cruelty … she who could be so cruel to Karol is now moved to tears by his death. They become a perfect matched pair in weakness and revenge.

In the next scene, Dominique and Karol will be reunited. Honestly, the movie could have ended there and it would have been ok. But Kieslowski feels the need to take the revenge plot one step too far … but I’ll get to that in the next essay.