What is the primary motivation for the good things we do? This is not a question examined often in films. More often, movies examine people at their worst and raise questions about why they do terrible things. The judge at this point in the film wants to test Valentine on her benevolence — why does she pursue virtuous acts.

We pick up the same conversation between her and the judge and need to continue to follow the conversation closely. He asks Valentine, do you think I’m a bastard? She responds yes — and so he asks her to look at the man out the window. He is on a portable phone, a Japanese brand that is especially difficult to tap because of its encryption. The judge tells her that he believes this man is responsible for managing most of the heroin trade in Geneva. You can see the anger building up on Valentine’s face. The judge offers his phone number and hands Valentine the phone if she wishes to call him. She takes him up on this offer. When the man picks up, she says “you deserve to die” and hangs up. Then watch as he dashes away in fear.

Valentine asks “what did I do?” The judge hands her the phone number “in case you wish to verbally assault him again.” The judge then goes back to his eavesdropping, saying that the next program isn’t so interesting. It’s a conversation between a mother and daughter. The older woman is lodging various complaints about her life, specifically that she has no food in the house and no energy to do the shopping. The daughter blankly tells her that she had just bought food for her three days ago and questions how she could have eaten it all so quickly.” The judge then tells Valentine “you should do her shopping, you’d feel better.”

Valentine responds that maybe the old woman would feel better. The judge asks her why she stopped and helped Rita when she hit her. She said that Rita was hurt and bleeding. The judge says that if she didn’t stop she would feel guilty and would have dreams about the dog’s crushed body. Valentine responds yes, leading the judge to conclude that she did the good deed for herself, to make her feel better. He adds that it would be pointless to do the old woman’s grocery shopping for her, she has everything she needs, but she complains to her daughter because she wants to see her. The daughter has come five times when her mother has faked heart attacks. This has made her daughter disbelieve the things she says and when she dies, the judge says that he will be required to inform the daughter of her death because she’s heard talk of it so much that she will no longer believe it.

This gets under Valentine’s skin — she tells him that he is wrong, that he doesn’t understand people, they aren’t as bad as he assumes. Sometimes they are weak, but they don’t intend such harm. The judge then asks, who is the young man who learned about his father, a boyfriend or brother? Valentine replies that it’s her brother, and that he’s 16. The judge asks how long he has been using heroin. She asks how he knows — he said it wasn’t too hard to guess it.

Valentine has finally had enough. She says “one can only have pity for you” and walks out. She adds as she goes that he probably doesn’t know that his dog is going to have puppies.

It’s an interesting question why Valentine puts up with this bitter old man’s views on life for so long. I think the answer to this is that Valentine doesn’t have anyone in her life who gets to the deep and difficult parts of her existence, she sees and talks to people who only deal with the surface levels of life, where it appears that she lives a perfect existence — she is young and beautiful, works as a model, is known as a kind, thoughtful person. But that isn’t all that she is. She is also very lonely, with a boyfriend far away, a brother in despair, a mother who is blind to the pain around her. The judge, for all of his cynical darkness, sees through the surface. He isn’t trying to seduce Valentine to praise her outward beauty, he’s more interested in reaching those places she is trying to ignore.

We see Valentine drive off — actually, we don’t see her, just the camera’s view from the car … and there is this gorgeous shot of sunset on Lake Geneva as she drives down the twisty road … both the water and sky in a pale pink. Valentine is crying on the drive home. She pulls up in her neighborhood in darkness. As she walks off from the car towards her place (I must note, we see her hand covering he face as she walks off), we see the young man coming back from buying a carton of cigarettes (I must note again the astounding amount of smoking in Kieslowski movies.) His phone is ringing and he rushes into the apartment to pick up, but does not reach it in time. He tries to phone his girlfriend back, but the phone is busy. He then lights up a cigarette, his dog next to him.

Valentine now gets on her phone. She is calling over to her mother’s house. Her mother picks up, she says hello and asks if Marc, her brother, had arrived. She says yes, he and his girlfriend Marie are here, they are watching TV. The mother says it’s like old times, your brother is a good boy. It seems very weird to me, he’s 16 and he’s visiting his mom? So, he’s living on the streets as a heroin addict and she’s that oblivious to his life? What a very strange woman. Marc gets on the phone and confirms this, says that he has to get out and go back home, they are leaving tomorrow. Valentine agrees with this. She asks if his mother saw the story in the newspaper, he says no and she wouldn’t believe it if she did see it. The phone call ends.

Valentine then says “call me Michel” and the phone rings. She picks up … but it is not her boyfriend. It is the photographer from the recent shoot who asks if she has seen the billboard. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He says she should see it, it will put her in a good mood. But then the scene cuts not to Valentine at the billboard, but bowling with the photographer and a couple more people. The scene is bathed the red — the alleys are lined with red, Valentine’s ball is red. She appears to bowl very well. The camera then drifts away from their lane and lands on a glass of beer that has been shattered. We don’t know what it means, perhaps we will discover later?