Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Writers: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Photography: Slawomir Idziak
Music: Zbigniew Preisner
Editor: Jacques Witta
Cast: Irene Jacob, Halina Gryglaszewska, Kalina Jedrusik, Aleksandr Bardini, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Jerzy Gudejko, Philippe Volter
The Double Life of Veronique is ultimately a bit of a puzzle box movie, but I was so smitten with it when I saw it for the first time 10 years ago that I ranked it #3 for 1991 (after Dogfight and Hearts of Darkness, see here). I thought then it could become my favorite for 1991, perhaps because it's so beloved by critics, but a recent revisit did not make me as high. I felt compelled to dive into DVD extras to get a handle on it, even reading the Jonathan Romney essay, "Through the Looking Glass," written circa 2006. I was happy to find him arguing, amidst all the rapture, that it "endure[s] as a spellbinding experience, as well as a perplexing one." Romney also quotes another critic, Nigel Andrews, who wrote: "I believe we are being hypnotized in The Double Life of Veronique.... How else to explain the ability of a French-Polish film with a nonsensical plot premise ... to enthrall and enchant us like no European film in recent history?"
The nonsensical plot premise is more or less a doppelganger story, but it spans great unknowable distances. There are two of her: Weronika in Poland, and Veronique in France, both played with zest and charisma by Irene Jacob, a glowing presence. Both of their lives are wrapped up in music one way or another and there are other parallels. Veronique actually happens to take a photo of Weronika on a trip to central Europe but never notices the photo until many years later. When one of them dies the other feels a powerful unexplained sadness. Director and cowriter Krzysztof Kieslowski tries to explain by saying the picture "was difficult ... because it deals with things you can't name. If you do, they seem trivial and stupid"—and just so with plot summaries.
The Double Life of Veronique is ultimately a bit of a puzzle box movie, but I was so smitten with it when I saw it for the first time 10 years ago that I ranked it #3 for 1991 (after Dogfight and Hearts of Darkness, see here). I thought then it could become my favorite for 1991, perhaps because it's so beloved by critics, but a recent revisit did not make me as high. I felt compelled to dive into DVD extras to get a handle on it, even reading the Jonathan Romney essay, "Through the Looking Glass," written circa 2006. I was happy to find him arguing, amidst all the rapture, that it "endure[s] as a spellbinding experience, as well as a perplexing one." Romney also quotes another critic, Nigel Andrews, who wrote: "I believe we are being hypnotized in The Double Life of Veronique.... How else to explain the ability of a French-Polish film with a nonsensical plot premise ... to enthrall and enchant us like no European film in recent history?"
The nonsensical plot premise is more or less a doppelganger story, but it spans great unknowable distances. There are two of her: Weronika in Poland, and Veronique in France, both played with zest and charisma by Irene Jacob, a glowing presence. Both of their lives are wrapped up in music one way or another and there are other parallels. Veronique actually happens to take a photo of Weronika on a trip to central Europe but never notices the photo until many years later. When one of them dies the other feels a powerful unexplained sadness. Director and cowriter Krzysztof Kieslowski tries to explain by saying the picture "was difficult ... because it deals with things you can't name. If you do, they seem trivial and stupid"—and just so with plot summaries.
The reticence for naming, however, can leave one with a feeling that things are not adding up, or even that they are just vague. In many ways the point of view is uncomfortably god-like. Who else could know about this strange interplay across thousands of miles and a still metallic curtain between Weronika and Veronique? These two are at least as confused by their experience as the rest of us—more so, as the one left behind never understands the source of her sadness, or if so only partially. There is even an element here of irrational subatomic quantum mechanics, as it is suggested one of these characters burns her hand on a stove and the other thereafter is instinctively cautious about touching stoves.
But now I'm making Kieslowski's point for him, naming the events in this movie and perhaps making them sound trivial and stupid. The Double Life of Veronique deserves better than that. It lands on wonderful and ecstatic passages, such as Weronika singing from sheer joy in the rain, the single scene that won me over, incidentally sounding the picture's gorgeous musical theme by Zbigniew Preisner. That theme is artfully woven all through the picture but gets its best treatment in this early scene. The frames and setups throughout are a collage of liquid motion—the picture has a lot of flow, like feeling the current when swimming in a river.
But more art film troubles: a small person has a small role, almost a cameo it is so brief, but reminds us that art films do love a small person. A marionette show and the accompanying puppeteer have large roles in this story, particularly an unlikely sequence involving a tape recording sent through the mail. At the same time, harking even back to the roll dance from Chaplin's Gold Rush, some of the movements and gestures in these marionette scenes are eerily lifelike. I don't mind a marionette show when it can manage that. Then there is the matter of the color palette, a sickly yellow intended to make the film feel autumnal. It doesn't work for me because ultimately it feels so self-conscious, as if the only way we can see the picture is through this gluey artificial haze.
The Double Life of Veronique is over 30 years old now and, while I can remember 1991 myself quite vividly, I can see how the picture is a little dated, with perhaps outworn ideas of cinematic beauty and grace. Kieslowski died young, at 54 (I was alarmed by his heavy smoking in the DVD extras, especially when he mentioned his father died young from "bad lungs"), but he finished his career quite strong, with The Dekalog in 1988 and the Three Colors trilogy in 1993 and 1994. Romney makes a great point that, at Cannes in 1994, many expected Kieslowski's Red to take the big prize, but it went instead to Pulp Fiction. Romney sees it as a major transition point in movies, marking the end of one sense of art cinema, of which Kieslowski was a dedicated standard-bearer.
The Double Life of Veronique came after Dekalog and also bears some of the techniques and themes that would be more developed in the trilogy. It has spectacular moments and stunning visual work. It has loose threads and unfinished business. Kieslowski reportedly worked through dozens of rough cuts, adding, subtracting, and modifying its wide range of touch points. The result feels a little unfinished, a little unfocused, a little unsure of what it is. See it when you're in a rapturous mood.
But now I'm making Kieslowski's point for him, naming the events in this movie and perhaps making them sound trivial and stupid. The Double Life of Veronique deserves better than that. It lands on wonderful and ecstatic passages, such as Weronika singing from sheer joy in the rain, the single scene that won me over, incidentally sounding the picture's gorgeous musical theme by Zbigniew Preisner. That theme is artfully woven all through the picture but gets its best treatment in this early scene. The frames and setups throughout are a collage of liquid motion—the picture has a lot of flow, like feeling the current when swimming in a river.
But more art film troubles: a small person has a small role, almost a cameo it is so brief, but reminds us that art films do love a small person. A marionette show and the accompanying puppeteer have large roles in this story, particularly an unlikely sequence involving a tape recording sent through the mail. At the same time, harking even back to the roll dance from Chaplin's Gold Rush, some of the movements and gestures in these marionette scenes are eerily lifelike. I don't mind a marionette show when it can manage that. Then there is the matter of the color palette, a sickly yellow intended to make the film feel autumnal. It doesn't work for me because ultimately it feels so self-conscious, as if the only way we can see the picture is through this gluey artificial haze.
The Double Life of Veronique is over 30 years old now and, while I can remember 1991 myself quite vividly, I can see how the picture is a little dated, with perhaps outworn ideas of cinematic beauty and grace. Kieslowski died young, at 54 (I was alarmed by his heavy smoking in the DVD extras, especially when he mentioned his father died young from "bad lungs"), but he finished his career quite strong, with The Dekalog in 1988 and the Three Colors trilogy in 1993 and 1994. Romney makes a great point that, at Cannes in 1994, many expected Kieslowski's Red to take the big prize, but it went instead to Pulp Fiction. Romney sees it as a major transition point in movies, marking the end of one sense of art cinema, of which Kieslowski was a dedicated standard-bearer.
The Double Life of Veronique came after Dekalog and also bears some of the techniques and themes that would be more developed in the trilogy. It has spectacular moments and stunning visual work. It has loose threads and unfinished business. Kieslowski reportedly worked through dozens of rough cuts, adding, subtracting, and modifying its wide range of touch points. The result feels a little unfinished, a little unfocused, a little unsure of what it is. See it when you're in a rapturous mood.
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