Three Colors: White

In a somber Parisian divorce court, the hapless Karol Karol (Polish barber) stands before the judge, his words conveyed through an interpreter as he pleads for understanding. The stark reality unfolds: his wife Dominique no longer loves him due to his inability to consummate their marriage. As the divorce is granted, Dominique presents Karol with a suitcase containing his meager possessions, leaving him bereft of financial resources and ownership of the jointly owned salon. With nowhere to turn, Karol seeks refuge in the very same salon, only to be discovered by Dominique the next morning. Their attempted intimacy is once again foiled by Karol's impotence, leading Dominique to cruelly reveal her lack of affection for him. In a calculated move, she sets ablaze the salon curtains, framing Karol for arson and forcing him to flee, his life reduced to begging on the streets.

As Karol performs melancholic songs using a comb in a Parisian Métro station, he crosses paths with Mikołaj, a fellow Pole who has found success. Mikołaj offers Karol a job – an unsettling proposition that requires him to take the life of someone who lacks the courage to end their own – but Karol rejects the offer. Instead, he shares his heartache with Mikołaj, revealing Dominique's new paramour outside her window. This discovery sends Karol into a frenzy as he rushes back to confront her, only to be subjected to an auditory torment: listening to Dominique's intimate moment through a telephone booth at the station.

Through a perilous plan, Mikołaj assists Karol in returning to Poland, hiding him within the very same suitcase that had become a symbol of his former life. However, their ruse is foiled when airport employees steal the suitcase, leaving Karol battered and broken in a Polish countryside dump. Defeated but resilient, Karol makes his way back to Warsaw, where he finds solace with his brother Jurek, marking the beginning of his arduous journey towards redemption.

As Karol reenters the workforce at his brother's hair salon and simultaneously takes on a role as a seemingly innocuous bodyguard in a cash exchange office, he seizes the opportunity to snoop on his bosses. Utilizing his position as a disarmingly naive bodyguard, Karol discreetly gathers intelligence on his employers, uncovering their plan to purchase parcels of land that they are aware will be targeted by large corporations for development and resell at exorbitant profits. Karol beats them to the punch, then confronts his former bosses with an ultimatum: if they harm him, all his estate will go to the church, forcing them to purchase the land from him instead. With this newfound wealth, Karol tracks down Mikołaj and asks for the job he had previously offered. Mikołaj agrees to meet Karol in a Warsaw Metro tunnel for what appears to be an execution, only to reveal that he is the intended target, begging Karol to take his life. Initially hesitant, Karol fires a blank into Mikołaj's chest and asks if he truly wants to proceed with the next bullet being real. Mikołaj changes his mind, expressing gratitude for having been given a second chance at life, and proceeds to pay Karol as agreed.

With the money he has amassed from his scheme and the payment from Mikołaj, Karol embarks on a business venture (the nature of which remains somewhat ambiguous) with him. Karol becomes ruthlessly ambitious, accumulating a fortune while improving his French and brooding over his wife's abandonment. One night, after awakening from a dream about Dominique (Karol), he makes the fateful decision to call her, only for her to hang up. Seething with resentment, Karol concocts a plan to exact revenge on Dominique. First, he leaves the majority of his wealth to her in his will, then, with the aid of Mikołaj and Jurek as well as his financial allies, fakes his own death and prepares to frame her for it. On the day of his supposed burial, Karol watches from a distance as Dominique mourns. He later surprises her in her hotel room, seemingly reconciling with her before making love together. The next morning, Karol departs before Dominique awakens, only for her to be subsequently arrested by local police on suspicion of murdering him to gain his fortune.

Sometime later, Karol visits the prison complex where Dominique is being held, gazing at her through binoculars from afar. She gestures to him that she wants to remarry him, and Karol's eyes well up with tears.