Green, in food or fashion*

“She'd discovered a small beach far from town, with crystal-clear water and pink sand. She loved that spot. The colors of nature were so beautiful, and there was no noise. She'd leave only when the sun did too.”

– Giuliana

Antonioni's first film in colour beautifully utilises Vitti's brilliance – of her auburn hair, her porcelain teint, her vivid costumes (by Paola Carloni) – against the drab landscape.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Green: a building or structure*

“That's all the people we've got now. We'll get there somehow.”

Where the old folks' hands push the cart, the green's worn off. That doesn't change anything about its importance. A lifeline, bread, is delivered once a week and with delivered, it means that the carriage is left on the rails, several kilometers away from Zhikharevo, or Township Nr. 3, which in its turn is about 80 km away from Saint Petersburg. It takes the seniors about two hours to get the wagon to their hamlet. We get to witness ten minutes or so. It lasts a lifetime.

 

As of 2002, only three people lived in Zhikharevo. I wonder how the wain comes home now.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Yellow, in food or fashion*

“Tourists prefer the trendy colors, yellow and blue. Pacing fancies, hotels are painted yellow and blue. Blue wins. All women want to be fashionable. All women wear blue, except the English, those learning to swim, and the Germans, who are dedicated to green.”

– narrator

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Yellow: a building or structure*

“Just when I really needed a raincoat, he returned to my side. It would be so great if it could rain forever.”

– Punkie

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Orange, food or fashion*

“Tell me the truth!”

– choir

An allegorical, psychedelic retelling of Genesis 3 and the Fall of Man

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Orange: a building or structure*

“Today is the first day of a life of sacrifice.”

– Moritoo Endō

Partially filmed near the 厳島神社 (Itsukushima Shrine) with its striking vermilion torii.

 

Shot on Eastmancolor, relatively cheap and globally available, and influenced by Hollywood colour melodramas of the time, in particularly Rudolph Maté's Mississippi Gambler (1953) (source), and in its turn greatly influenced the implementation of colour in global cinema to come.

 

Jigokumon won two Academy Awards in 1955, for Best Costume Design and Best Foreign Language Film.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Red: best use of red in food or fashion*

“She looked at the red shoes, for she thought there was no harm in looking. She put them on, for she thought there was no harm in that either. But then she went to the ball and began dancing. When she tried to turn to the right, the shoes turned to the left. When she wanted to dance up the ballroom, her shoes danced down. They danced down the stairs, into the street, and out through the gate of the town. Dance she did, and dance she must, straight into the dark woods.”

– Hans Christian Andersen, De røde Skoe (1845, tranl. Jean Hersholt, 1949), via

Another one of The Archers' #Technicolor extravaganzas. This time, not to wow the worn-down post-war black-and-white audience, but as an an active storytelling instrument.

 

Built around Hans Christian Andersen's haunting tale De røde Skoe (1845).

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Red: a building or structure*

“It's just a dream, Agnes.”

– Anna

Red as an expression of inner and outer worlds. Even the scene transitions are red.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

A character wearing pink on National Pink Day (USA), not to be confused with the much more poignant International Day of Pink

“Paris, Paris, Paris C'est sur la Terre un coin de paradis Paris, Paris, Paris, De mes amours c′est lui le favori Mais oui, mais oui, pardi Ce que j'en dis on vous l′a déjà dit Et c'est Paris, qui fait la parisienne Qu′importe, qu'elle vienne du nord ou bien du midi Et c'est aussi le charme et l′élégance Et l′âme de la France Tout cela, mais c'est Paris”

Joséphine Baker, Paris, Paris (Georges Zacharie Tabet)

Cowherd Mory and student Anta journey from Dakar to their new destination, the city of Paris.

Green for Irish-American Heritage Month (USA)

“He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.”

– caption