He’s got a story or 3 to tell

It begins as a thriller about an escaped convict. Roll credits. Begins again as a romantic comedy about a confused couple. Roll credits. And begins yet again as a melodrama about a cop and his junkie wife. Roll credits.

Filmmaker Lucas Belvaux has said “The Trilogy,” his Krzysztof Kieslowski-inspired trio of separate but linked films, can be seen individually or in any order. He recommends starting light, with a dramatic finish. The noir “On the Run,” which opens Friday at Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills, is the first of the intertwined films being released here.

The other two films, a lighter “An Amazing Couple” and the more serious “After the Life,” are scheduled to open April 9 and April 16.

In “On the Run,” Belvaux plays a terrorist named Bruno trying to piece together his old life and settle scores after 15 years in jail. Firmly entrenched in the past and his own political mind-set, Bruno is flummoxed by a world moved on. While running from a downtrodden cop, Pascal (Gilbert Melki, who plays a main character in “After the Life”), Bruno meets morphine-junkie Agnes (Dominique Blanc, also a main character in “After the Life”), saves her life and ends up hiding out in an apartment owned by her friend, Cecile (Ornella Muti, seen in-depth in “An Amazing Couple”).

The movies are like planets on occasionally intersecting orbits. They come together for brief moments, then continue on separate paths. This is Belvaux’s way of exploring how his characters live on once they leave the screen.

The idea of cross encounters allows the main characters in one film to be on the periphery of another. But unlike single films constructed under a similar intertwining premise, Belvaux describes each of his films as being its own story with a beginning and end.

-- Erin Ailworth