To be or not to be.

(Chloe, this is for you. :)

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is super good. The production design was especially well done. When I watched it I drew some conclusions that I thought were interesting.

So the main color scheme for the film is only 3 colors: white, red, and black.

White & Black
The setting is the castle where the floor is a checkerboard of black and white squares, which seems unusual for the time period that the movie is set in, but to me it represents the theme of conflict throughout the entire play: Hamlet's internal conflict, the conflict with his uncle, his conflict with his own mother, the conflict between Hamlet and Polonius and eventually Ophelia and Laertes as well, etc. It is a constant reminder that things are not right in Denmark.

White
I think the white represents the lost purity and shattered innocence of Hamlet. When he lost his father it was a tragic loss for him, but then for it to be so immediately followed with his mother's wedding was unthinkable. It completely destroyed his world. You can see in this picture that the white petals are his broken innocence, falling to the ground.

Red
Which brings me to red. The scarlet represents the sin and wrongdoings of his uncle, who is the one that destroyed Hamlet's world by murdering his father and marrying his mother.

Hamlet's mother is dressed in white and his uncle in red, because his uncle blemishes the purity of his mother. It symbolizes his shame and guilt (that he SHOULD feel).

Black
Aaand black is Hamlet's discord with his surroundings. He just does not fit in with the rest of the castle because there is such a barrier between him and everything/everyone else in his life. And he holds onto it throughout the entire movie until the very end when he is dressed in black and white for the final scene, when his conflict is resolved.

And see how the color for his uncle's sins isn't there anymore. Hamlet triumphed in the end!