La double vie de Véronique

The Double Life of Veronique | 10/10

This is an incredibly haunting and poetic work that raises a plethora of questions regarding life, death, and the unexplainable connection that some people share. I was stuck in a sort of trance while watching this, as beautifully photographed scenes seemed to follow one after the other for the film's entirety.

There wasn't a moment that I had lost interest, and the questions posed throughout are some that I found myself thinking about on many different occasions as a child. Do we, perhaps even simultaneously, share the same thoughts, feel the same feelings, and take part in the same actions as another person we have never met? Is it more than instinctual for us to avoid certain things, or act in certain ways? This film spoke to these questions, but of course never answered them. It turns out, I believe, that there are no answers to begin with.

This is the fourth Kieslowski film I've seen, and most certainly the best. Visually, it shares a few things in common with the Colors Trilogy, and Irène Jacob (Veronique and Veronika) was actually the main character in Red. Her acting is extremely good in both films, and the mood she creates in this one is understated, but incredibly graceful. I should mention the music in the film as well, which in addition to being beautifully presented, plays an important role in the connection between the two women. This is one of the best films ever made, presented by a man of great vision who left us far too soon.

The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

Director Krzysztof Kieslowski is one of the undisputed poets of Cold War and post-Cold War cinema. The movies in his Polish/French trilogy, Blue, White, and Red, are finely tuned, sensitive, imaginative dramas that use mystery, music, psychology and visual fluidity to immerse you in another world that is beguiling and fascinating.

That's exactly what goes on here. It's a stunning movie-making "achievement" in how it pulls off this unique blend of amorphous elements, leading you into the ambiguity of the director's invented world. And into the world (or worlds) of the lead characters, both played by Irene Jacob, a classic kind of restrained French (French-Swiss) actress with a limited range, but within that range she has penetrating beauty and a moving, melancholic aura for the camera, which lingers on her face through much of the movie. Her roles as the two women who are classic doppelgangers--they look alike, have similar talents (singing), and both have heart problems. And they overlap in reality for just a few seconds, with only one seeing the other until later, when the other finds she took a picture of the first.

This is an unashamedly lofty film. It has high art written all over it, but not in the experimental or cutting edge way of independent filmmakers of this time. Rather, it pushes European mainstream film to its most refined limits, not giving up a narrative logic, not giving up musical scoring and photographic pyrotechnics, and not giving up a cast of beautiful people doing beautiful things. In fact, the star, first shown as a child, is looking at the stars in pure wonder, and the beauty of the world is sustaining and truly marvelous for her--and this I think is the life view of the director. That the world is amazing, filled with odd and beautiful coincidences, and is mostly there to be lived and enjoyed regardless.

To some extent, he is both characters, both Veroniques. The allegories of 1980s Europe, splintering under Communism's last few years, have been written about a lot (the Polish Weronika gives herself to her music and dies for it, trapped somehow, the French Veronique is free to reject her talent, travel, and yet, ultimately, end up a puppet to her personal weakness). But the fact is, Kieslowski was both the successful Polish director who died young (though he didn't expect that I'm sure) for his art, and the successful expatriate living a life filled with art and pleasure. He embodied the modern Europe, filled with the heady optimism that led to the love of a new Europe without borders, infinite in its possibilities.

It's worth noting that Communism has just fallen when this movie was made. There is a brief scene (the bus scene with the soldiers) that inserts this with, as usual, elegance. (Note here that he again makes the individual's inner needs more important than the greater politics.) The French Veronique is free to be hedonistic, the Polish version cannot quite do that, though you feel her struggle with what to do with her life as a singer.

All of this is obviously impressive. For its intentions and its inner coherence, the movie is terrific. But it's also starting to feel self-important, a little overblown in both its allegories and even in the basic doppelganger hook that holds it together. It's also a slow movie. If you don't completely drown, happily, in the aesthetics of the film (which would be easy to do), you might find there are little moments made too important, too detailed, too unaware that the audience is getting ahead of the movie and is restless. For me this was in some of the musical segments, in the marionette scenes, and even in the very last moments, which should have blown me out of the water.

Final word. I think it would help to see this film before the Three Colors trilogy, because they are better movies, especially "Blue" and "Red." I have seen "Red" several times, and it also stars Jacob, and I love it completely still. This predecessor is thinner in comparison, but only in comparison to this remarkable director's startling successes immediately after.

Much of this is an adoration of French actress Iréne Jacob by Director Krzysztof Kieslowski; in a sense it is a homage to her, one of the most beautiful actresses of our time and one of the most talented. If you've never seen her, this is an excellent place to begin. She has an earnest, open quality about her that is innocent and sophisticated at the same time so that everything a man might want in a young woman is realized in her. Part of her power comes from Kieslowski himself who has taught her how she should act to captivate. He has made her like a little girl fully grown, yet uncorrupted, natural, generous, kind, without pretension, unaffected. She is a dream, and she plays the dream so well.

The movie itself is very pretty, but somewhat unaffecting with only the slightest touch of blue (when the puppeteer appears by the curtain, the curtain is blue, and we know he is the one, since she is always red). The music by Zbignew Preisner is beautiful and lifts our spirits, highlighted by the soprano voice of Elzbieta Towarnicka. But the main point is Iréne Jacob, whom the camera seldom leaves. We see her from every angle, in various stages of dress and undress, and she is beautiful from head to toe. And we see her as she is filled with the joy of herself and her talent, with the wonder of discovery and the wonder of life, with desire, and with love.

Obviously this is not a movie for the action/adventure crowd. Everything is subtle and refined with only a gross touch or two (and no gore, thank you) to remind us of the world out there. Véronique accepts the little crudities of life with a generous spirit, the flasher, the two a.m. call, her prospective lover blowing his nose in front of her... She loves her father and old people. She is a teacher of children. She climaxes easily and fully. To some no doubt she is a little too good to be true. And she is, and that is Kieslowski's point: she is a dream. And such a beautiful dream.

An actress playing the character twice in a slightly different way has occurred in at least two other films in the nineties: there was Patricia Arquette in David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) and Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors (1998). It's an appealing venture for an actress of course and when the actress is as talented as these three are, for the audience as well.

Note that as Weronika/Véronique is in two worlds, Poland and France, so too has always been Kieslowski himself in his real life. It is interesting how he fuses himself with his star. This film is his way of making love to her.

Kieslowski died in 1996 not long after finishing his celebrated trilogy, Trois Couleurs: Bleu (1993); Rouge (1994) and Bialy (White) (1994). We could use another like him.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

I save films. By that I mean that some films I expect to be so precious that I want to save them for some future drought, or blue period where I need spiritual insulin. Or it may be that a valued filmmaker has died and I know there is only so much to see new and I want to pace it through my life.

Kieslowski is something of a demigod in my film world. It isn't that he has mattered so much in the sense of affecting me. Its because he can push geography with the slightest touch, infer emotional richness with the most subtle of motions, show us beauty headon — headon without artifice. His the most delicate power I know in cinema. His "Decalogue" is complex, open, engineered to be contradictory in ways that seem natural. But they are not where the real juice is. Its merely where he worked out the way to weave vision and narrative conflict with his companion and creative partner.

It's "Three Colors" where it pays off. These are miraculous and I wish them on any open soul. They will tear you gently in ways you will not notice for years, and then know all of a sudden when you meet someone.

In between "Decalogue and "Colors," we have this, essentially an adventure in moving from Polish to French vocabulary, both emotional and chromatic. Here we see some of the strokes we will encounter later, in one colored film even with the remarkable Irene. But he seems unsure here. Things aren't integrated between cinema and narrative as they were before and would be afterward. The eye doesn't inform with curious discovery, instead seems to glance around and hover.

I suppose it is because the story isn't well developed in the way that others are. The deal with Kieslowski I think (beyond the beauty) is that he is able to infer future urges that probably will loop back into places and persons we see. (He closes a very few of these ordinary loops in the third colors film). But he never closes them, not the ones that matter. So we are left with our own emotions going ahead and anticipating results that matter to us, things started and not finished, breath sent out for us to catch and breath.

This film is based on Alice in through the Lookingglass, with a number of less-than-deft fixtures to the source. He tries to build grand arcs of anticipated futures around this symmetry but they aren't fragile and supported by our wishes as we have elsewhere. I think it was simply a time of adjustment for him, and I cannot recommend this, even though I saved it for decades.

I will suggest that if you do watch it, see the same story, the same emotional effects, the same tantalizing near-closure in "Sex and Lucia" by someone less gifted with the eye, but more gifted with the mysteries of women. Watch out for the delicate tearing.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

"The Double Life of Veronique" is also focusing on the connection made between two people like Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy or his heaven,hell and Purgatory.But it is not about two people with a strong bond or two twins.The two girls are not merely soul mates,they're two versions of the same person.Like an old belief that after we die, our body will appear in different circumstances and live a new life.(in here they live two different life simultaneously).

The power of music in Kieslowski's film is inevitable.The scenes are not significant by themselves,the impact of the ideas and images with the powerful music make the film special.Kieslowski well used colors and camera filters to create an ethereal atmosphere which was very helpful in creating the films sense .I think the music and Irène Jacob performance were the most outstanding pieces of the film.

The central question of the film is "Is it just a matter of chance that one thinks and acts as one does?..Is there something as free will?"...It is a question of our lives too.