Detta är ett återkommande motiv och inte bara i alla delar av Three Colors Trilogy, utan även i La double vie de Véronique (främst Tre färger: Röd s Irène Jacob ).
Emma Wilson skriver:
The linking device is rendered all the more evident in a repeated motif found in all four films. In La double vie de Véronique, Weronika, dressed only in her underwear, watches an old woman with heavy shopping from her window. Improbably she cries out that she is going to help her. We do not see whether this happens here: the scene appears to relate again, and instead, to the trilogy where, when each of the three protagonists encounters a figure bent over with bags, intent on putting a bottle in a bottle bank, it is only Valentine, in Rouge, who will help her.
(Emma Wilson, Minne och överlevnad den franska biografen Krzysztof Kieślowski , New York 2017)
Dave Kehr 1994:
Other of the repeated elements carry a tremendous moral weight, acquired over time: a tiny, bent old woman, first glimpsed by Weronika hobbling down a street in Poland and later by Veronique in Paris, reappears in "Blue," struggling to deposit a glass bottle in the too-high opening of a recycling bin. Wrapped up in her own grief, June doesn't notice her, but when she reappears to Karol (as a man this time? the image is ambiguous), he watches her and smiles a rather cruel smile, as if her problems were only a comic distraction from his. Only when the old woman turns up in Geneva is there an act of recognition and intervention. Valentine, as she leaves the theater near the end of "Red," sees the old woman struggling and stops to help her, reaching up to drop the bottle in its slot. In a sense, that single, simple act of kindness is the climax of the entire trilogy, the gesture that saves the world.
Och talar om tre färger: Röda, Kickasola anteckningar (betona min):
As he leaves, Valentine sees an old woman struggling to put a bottle in the recycling bin. Unlike Julie and Karol, who failed charity in their encounters with this situation, Valentine moves to help her. It is not only the redemption of this motif of the trilogy but also the fourth dilemma posited in the Judge's house, the helping of the elderly woman who wished to see her daughter. The glass shatters as it hits the bottom of the bin. Kieślowski, when asked about the motif, replied: "All I want to do is remind us that someday we might be too old to get a bottle into a recycling bin." The sound of the breaking glass also redeems the shattered windows of the Judge's house.
(Joseph G. Kickasola, Krzysztof Kieślowskis filmer: Liminalbilden , New York 2006, s. 318 (Citatet är hämtat från "Insdorf, Double Life, 181" )
Vi har fyra filmer och alltid nästan samma scen: En gammal person som behöver hjälp och huvudpersonerna reagerar annorlunda på dem:
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Tre färger: Blå : Julie verkar inte ens märka henne.
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Tre färger: Vit : Karol märker dem, men är fortfarande passiva.
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La double vie de Véronique : Weronika / Véronique är åtminstone villiga att hjälpa.
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Tre färger: Röd : Valentine hjälper henne verkligen.
Vi ser en progression (observera att detta inte är helt kronologisk som La double vie de Véronique är äldre än trilogin) och den slutliga filmen leder slutligen till att den stackars gamla personen får hjälp. Det var den sista filmen i trilogin, det slutade binda alla filmerna tillsammans och Kieślowskis sista film. Äntligen är någon inte upptagen med sig själv eller ointresserad, men vill och hjälper verkligen. Det är, som Kehr noterar, "den gest som sparar världen."