An odd, vague question - films where red and blue are used as contrasts in
order to highlight conflicting moods, express relationships of oppositions
and the like.  I can come up with three examples at the moment: Bertolucci's
"Little Buddha" works with blue for the cold, cruel and soulless West, and
red or other warm colours for the spiritual,  hope-giving etc. East. Shinya
Tsukamoto's latest film "Tokyo Fist" (which I'm watching at the moment,
that's where I got the idea from) contrasts blue for the unphysical,
anonymous, sedate and cool urban Tokyo world with red for the physical, the
violent and the rotten (all the boxing scenes are virtually drowning in red
light). The third film is one whose title and director I can, to my
embarrassment, not remember. It was a megahit of Indian cinema in 1993 or
1994, starring Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt. Dutt played a terrorist, which
became particularly relevant when, just at the time the film came out, he
was arrested for smuggling weapons (so much for an intertwining of film and
reality). The catchiest thing about the film was its main song "khor likhe
pichhe khyar he" (sp?), which haunted me for a couple of months. In this
film, red is good and blue (mostly dark blue, almost black) is evil, and
there are telling scenes where dark or blue space is broken up by red rays
of light.
 
Birgit Kellner
Department for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima
 
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