This is the first part of the film where we start to see Valentine influencing others. It begins with the judge at his desk. He pulls out a large stack of papers and gets his fountain pen, which appears to be a Mont Blanc. He tries to begin a letter, but the ink is dry and he cannot get the pen to work. So he pulls out a pen and starts writing. We do not know at this moment, but he is writing letters to everyone he has eavesdropped upon, confessing to his actions.

This is quickly followed up by a van with a device on top that I can only assume picks up radio signals. It is clearly scanning the neighborhood as someone has tipped off authorities to the fact that the judge is somehow picking up their phone signals. One house in the neighborhood has a Red Pontiac TransAm parked out front — a stereotypical car of a drug dealer in that era.

The man in the red Jeep then pulls up to a red light and right in front of him is the massive advertisement for a chewing gum company featuring Valentine on a billboard. He looks at the ad and smiles — his first face to face encounter with Valentine. He’s so transfixed that he stares at the ad even after the light turns green, leading to a driver behind him beeping for him to go. The camera stays on the ad and right before cutting away, another red car pulls up to the ad … we’ve seen this red car before in Valentine’s neighborhood, does it have any significance?

Valentine gets home and hears the phone ringing, but her key isn’t working because someone has played a prank on her and put chewing gum in the lock. She knocks on a neighbors door who gets some tweezers to remove the gun, blaming it on some “Turkish kids.” It’s a curious little moment because someone would have to not only know that it is her in the ad, but also where she lives to do this to her, which should alarm her more than it does.

Her mind is on the call. She doesn’t reach it. Michel is the one who called. He calls again and Valentine reaches this time. Michel is an absolute asshole. Every time he talks to Valentine he’s making an unhinged jealous accusation towards her or expressing paranoia about her not being home or having someone else over. He declares that she shouldn’t do modeling work because “they are taking advantage of you.” He asks if she turned her phone machine on and she said no, that she just wants peace and quiet. He responds that he’s not the man for her, in that case, he doesn’t believe in peace and quiet. He has another round of paranoid questioning of her, says he’s going to Hungary the next week, then ask what she’s doing. She says she’s going to be — so he angrily tells her to go.

Michel hangs up first. After Valentine hangs up she says “it’s happening again …” so clearly this is not the first round of paranoia from him that she’s had to deal with. I personally have no tolerance for jealousy and find it to be an extremely unappealing trait, but I’ve come across women who actually need a certain level of jealousy from men or else they think they lack care or passion for them. Whatever, I don’t buy that … and Valentine doesn’t seem to find Michel’s behavior as a positive trait either. Valentine then starts to get undressed to take a shower and the phone rings again. Michel begins a new round, asking if she’s asleep or in bed. When she says that she was about to take a shower, he asks if someone was helping her out. He then asks if she’s there and she says no and hangs up on him.

The man in the red Jeep (I still don’t know his name) is walking down stairs carrying a huge stack of books (he’s wearing a burgundy shirt and tie, by the way.) As he reached his girlfriend, he throws the books into the air in celebration. He has passed his legal exam, which I assume clears him to serve on the bench … he too is about to become a judge. His girlfriend kisses and congratulates him and asks if they asked a question about the passage in the book that flew open — he nods yes. She then gives him a gift — a Mont Blanc pen. You might understand now why I believed there was a time travel element to the movie, that the judge’s pen that didn’t work earlier in this segment is the same pen he is given here. But that’s not the case. Just keep in mind what Kieslowski says about his moral universe: nothing makes sense, everything is planned. As the scene closes he asks “what will be the first judgment I sign with this pen?”

The scene then cuts to the judge, sitting in a courthouse hallway. A barrister sees him and nods out of respect. We then see numerous people from his neighborhood start to gather in the hallway as well. One is the blonde girlfriend of the man with the Jeep … except she is not there with him, she’s talking to a young lawyer and seems to be getting very chummy with him. The judge of course picks up on this, because it’s core to his personality, he can’t stop being curious about others. A bailiff then calls out, the residents of Pinchat vs. Joseph Kern. So we do learn the judge’s name!

We are at a record store next. Everyone is on headphones listening to music. Valentine is listening to a Van den Budenmeyer recording. Across from her is the blonde girlfriend of the man in the red Jeep … and this new man she was talking to at the courthouse. This woman is looking at the man intently as they both listen to something. That couple leaves first. Valentine follows behind closely and asks to buy a CD of Van Den Budenmeyer. The clerk declares that he just sold the last disk to the people who just left … but he can put another on hold for her that afternoon.

In the Kieslowski universe, everyone listens to this obscure, fictional Dutch classical composer and the music has a strange way of influencing behavior. It’s all planned … it doesn’t make sense.