I don’t enjoy this part of “Three Colours: White” and also don’t understand people who do. I don’t like watching people inflict cruelty on others or to watch people suffer. What happens in these scenes isn’t funny to me, it’s just mean and unnecessary.

The cruelest, most unfortunate fact is that Karol still loves her. When Dominique drops him with nothing but his huge crate, he runs after her, calling her name. But Dominique is out for the kind of revenge often levied after someone has been wronged in a relationship. These scenes of retribution would have less sting if he had cheated on her or was involved in some financial impropriety. But as best we know, neither of those things happened, adding a level of unfairness.

It begins at an ATM machine. Karol Karol is trying to get money out, but the machine tells him that his card is unusable and confiscated it. He next goes inside a bank, where he is told that his account has been frozen. They then cut his credit card before his eyes.

We next see Karol huddled up on a Parisian street at night, apparently with nowhere to sleep. We see Kieslowski’s signature scene behind him, an elderly person struggling to put a bottle into the Parisian recycling bin. This time, it seems to be a man struggling, perhaps a vision of Karol’s future if he remains in Paris — if he even makes it to that age.

Karol then realizes that he still has the keys to the beauty shop he works in (and perhaps owns.) But the next shot we see is Dominique getting out of her car. She sees that the shop has been unlocked, goes inside — and sees Karol sleeping on the couch inside.

What follows is a series of strange pieces. She tries to get the keys from him, he pantomimes swallowing them. They physically flirt, sexual activity begins … and then he loses his potency again. He apologizes. She gets angry.

Then we get the closest thing to an explanation from Dominique, after she rejects his idea for her to move to Poland with him — you don’t understand me, she says. You don’t understand if I say I love you, you don’t understand if I say I hate you. You don’t understand that I will win every legal battle between us.

She seems to be most angry at Karol’s comic haplessness, at his lack of sophistication — or perhaps just his inability to read her mind. Who knows. When my feelings pass for someone, a certain emptiness creeps in and I question why I ever cared about her. This happened even at the end of the 25 year relationship, so perhaps I’m the oddball on this score. I understand that inexplicable anger often fills the void. I have no empathy for the lashing out, I don’t experience it, but I accept it as something true for many people. Even still, I don’t get Dominique and I dislike that character, even with the wonderful Julie Delpy portraying her.

Dominique then sets the salon on fire and tells Karol that she’ll tell the police he committed the arson as an act of revenge and every police officer will be after him soon. He quickly scurries away. At this moment, I want Karol to get as far away from this lunatic as he possibly can and never give her another thought.