Red dominated the first segment of the film, but now it takes on a more subtle character. There are red elements in nearly every shot now, but they are not central, they stand off to the side, hinting at possible meaning. So too there are many portents in this part of the film, little hints of what is to come, while still preserving mystery. This segment takes us to the 15 minute mark of the film but we still have no idea what it’s about.

Valentine is back on her job, at a fashion show walking the runway. She is dressed in a long blue overcoat. We see another model in a red coat who brushes by her briefly. Valentine smiles and seems to handle the assignment well, although she nearly trips at the end of the runway and tells this to a designer as she puts on another coat to return to the runway.

It appears to be a glamorous life, but Valentine has a very simple existence. We next see her alone in her own drab grey compact car. She is massaging her right wrist. We do no know where she might have sprained it, but given all of the physical activity we’ve seen her engaged in so far, it could have come from many places.

She next takes on that most typically Kieslowskian pose — she buries her face in her hands. What does this display: exhaustion? Longing? Valentine seems to want something in her life to happen, but we do not hear her articulate it. As she turns on the car to drive off, we see the names of some buildings in the distance in red letters … distant, beyond our reading or comprehension. Far away passion for something.

Next, we get this beautiful image of the red tail light of her car, the approaching red light, and the red outline of a billboard going up on the square. Something will soon arrive at this spot, but right now we just see the hint of it. As Valentine drives off, the camera lingers at that intersection. The young man we saw in the opening scenes is crossing the intersection. His books fall on the ground, he recovers them. He notices that a page of one of his lawbooks opened to a particular page, he takes note of it.

The music playing during this segment is unusual for Preisner … it feels a bit like Ravel mixed with Bernard Hermann, building suspense for something, but we’re unsure what. We hear a competing sound coming from Valentine’s car radio, a strange interference, like someone is jamming the radio station. Valentine tries to fix her radio reception and move away from this noise, but as she is playing with the radio, she hears a bump.

She pulls off to the side and sees that she has hit and injured a dog, a german sheppard. It always pains me to see an animal in distress, especially a dog. This one is whimpering and it takes a great deal of effort for Valentine to get her into the back seat of her car. She checks the collar and sees that the dog’s name is Rita. Valentine notices the blood on her hands. The address is listed on the collar. She looks up the locale on a map. She traces the path with her bloodied finger.

On the way, she takes a turn onto a distinctive curving, hilly street. This is another Kieslowski scene preview, we will remember taking this route in a later scene. She finds the house in question. It is dark, gothic. She rings the bell at the gate, but it is open, so she steps inside. She knocks on the door. No one answer, but it too is open, so she steps inside.

She navigates the house slowly. There are more little accents of red throughout the house, nothing sticking out as important. Valentine then hears that same strange sound that she heard on her car radio, that weird audio interference. She follows the sound into a room where an older man is dozing off in a chair. She knocks to wake him, says “excuse moi,” tells him the door is open, then relays that she hit is dog.

The man, who we will discover in later scenes is a retired judge, answers that this is possible, the dog ran away yesterday. Valentine tells him she has the dog in her car, what should she do? He replies: do as you wish. She asks if he would say the same if his daughter were hit by a car and he replies, I don’t have a daughter.

Valentine leaves. As she is about to enter her car, she notices the man peering out one of the windows toward her.

The segment moves the plot somewhat, but doesn’t tell us much. But before we get too deep into the story, which will complicate very quickly, I want to take a moment to connect the full Kieslowski moral universe. Think back to Dekalog 9, the episode with the young woman with a heart condition who sings Van Den Budenmeyer, the fictional Dutch composer. That episode connects to “The Double Life of Veronique” and Weronika’s similar heart condition and performance singing that same piece of music. Weronika is connected to Veronique in some mystical, unexplained fashion.

“Three Colours: Blue” is connected to this universe by the characters’ understanding and appreciation of Van Den Budenmeyer, whose work blends into the symphony they are creating. “White” is connected to “Blue” because we see the characters overlap in the opening courtroom segment.

And now we are in “Red.” We do not yet know of a literal connection to “Blue” or “White.” It is taking place in Geneva, after all, not Paris, which connected the other two movies. But Irene Jacob, who played both Weronika and Veronique, here plays Valentine. Is there a “Triple Life of Veronique”? And if so, what does Valentine have that the other two women did not and what is missing?

The mysteries will deepen and some can only be speculated upon. But “Red,” unlike almost everything else in the Kieslowski canon, will also give us some answers.