Red

"Red" is a foreign film without a country, at least as far as the Oscars are concerned.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a panel that selects nominees in the foreign-language film category — but "Red" was disqualified. Why? Too many countries were involved in its financing.

So, Academy voters reacted by giving "Red" three Oscar nominations in other categories.

The final entry in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Trois Couleurs" trilogy, "Red" follows "Blue," a downbeat meditation on grief, and "White," an offbeat comedy.

And with "Red," Kieslowski pulls together in a wondrous way his posturing about where human life fits into the greater scheme of things in this vast universe. And he ties the trio of films together literally in "Red's" climax, as the central characters from the first two films show up in an imaginative, harrowing and quite touching sequence.

Peripherally, "Red" focuses on communication — or more correctly, the lack of it — as it relates the stories of several people whose everyday lives intersect, even when they don't know it.

The film begins with the camera following a telephone call through the underground wires (red, of course) that carry its electrical transmission, traveling through complicated routes until it reaches its destination . . . only to be abruptly stopped by a busy signal.

This is the perfect opening for a film that deals with people who yearn to connect but abruptly cut each other off in ways both intended and unintentional.

Set in Geneva, the main story focuses on Valentine (played by the fabulous Irene Jacob), a model whose empty life is masked by the fact that she is so busy. What forces her to slow down is a mishap, as her car strikes a German shepherd. She finds the owner, a retired judge named Joseph (Jean-Louis Trintignant, who starred in "A Man and a Woman" and "The Conformist" all those years ago) and is surprised at his indifference toward his injured dog.

She soon learns that he is indifferent toward everything, however, including life itself. "Then stop breathing," she tells him at one point. "Good idea," he replies.

Valentine is curious and faintly touched by this beaten old man until she is genuinely shocked by the revelation that he has been recording the intimate telephone conversations of his neighbors.

Meanwhile, a young lawyer — and judge-to-be — keeps crossing her path, though it seems they will never meet. The aging judge in a younger incarnation, perhaps?

To tell much more would give away too many surprises but suffice it to say that other characters, subplots and twisting roads help Kieslowski consider fate and chance and the duality of life, as fragile as it is enduring.

"Red" is a wonderful concluding effort to this series, visually stunning, blithely enigmatic and utterly fascinating.

It is rated R for one brief moment, as someone looks in a window and spies a couple having sex.