The Double Life of Veronique
by Krzysztof Kieslowski
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Actor: Aleksander Bardini, Halina Gryglaszewska, Ir?ne Jacob, Kalina Jedrusik, Wladyslaw KowalskiDirector: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: French (Original Language), Analog; Italian (Original Language); Polish (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 96 minutes
Release Date: 2001-04-03
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Paramount
Studio: Paramount
VHS Movie Reviews of The Double Life of Veronique
Movie Review: Soul Sisters
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Krzysztof Kieslowski had previously explored the concept of multiple and parallel possibilities in life for the same person with his film, PRZYPADEK, (BLIND CHANCE) 1987, and with a brief subplot in the ninth episode of THE DECALOGUE (1990). With VERONIQUE, he probed deeper into the metaphysical probabilities in life, and postulated that each of us could, or might have a "doppelganger" out there, walking on this sphere just as we are, two almost identical parts of the same spiritual entity, and two separate but nearly identical souls. We can, or might be "aware" of that other presence, and we could share insights, instincts, fears, mishaps, dangers, and health issues.
Weronika (Irene Jacob) lived in Poland, a young woman still residing at home with her father. She has a fabulous natural singing voice, and is discovered one day by a famous music teacher--but she also has a cardiac condition that she does not deal with. Disregarding her heart problems, she launched into strenuous voice training, and plunged headlong into a fledgling career--but during what would have been a triumphant singing debut, she collapsed and died mid-performance.
We then are introduced to Veronique (Irene Jacob) who lived in France. She was a music teacher, who seemed to be taking singing lessons. She had recently returned from a trip to Poland, and without realizing it, she and Weronika had glimpsed each other while in the Great Square at Krakow. Weronika had seen Veronique clearly, although she made little of it. Veronique had snapped a photograph of Weronika without recognition of her. There is a myth that if we ever meet our doppelganger, one of us will die. Krieslowski seemed to subscribe to this notion.
Moments after Weronika's death, Veronique while making love suddenly felt a tremendous loss, an overwhelming sense of grief--somehow becoming aware that she was now "alone" in the world. She immediately contacted her singing teacher and cancelled her lessons, abandoned the notion of a singing career. This cross over of instinct or genetic knowledge was not explained--it is just presented.
Most of the film dealt with Veronique's life in France. She fell in love with a dashing and mysterious writer and puppeteer, who somehow seemed to "understand" the duality of her nature, and of her life. When he created two puppets, possibly representing this probability, Veronique fled from the relationship, fled from her full recognition of her special circumstance. It was if Weronika had ventured forth first on this firmament, like a fraternal twin, taking a breath mere minutes before the other. The choices she made for herself, however catastrophic, resulted somehow to serve as guidelines and considerations later for Veronique.
Kieslowski presented us several delicious overlapping and synchronicious symbols and objects that became the common warp and weave of the two lives in both countries--leaves, upside down imagery, landscapes, churches, colors, string, fathers, missing mothers, toys, and a weak heart among others; nothing overt yet still significant enough to reinforce our tingle of deju vu. There is a reoccurring character in both scenarios--a stern looking woman is a large hat; reminiscent of the angelic "observer" who appeared in most of the episodes of DECOLOGUE.
Kieslowski's universe was both Gnostic and existential, natural and surrealistic, mundane and nearly surreal at times--but there is no doubt that he led the way for many other film directors to explore to notions and philosophies he created. Many of us presently are less impressed with him than we should be, for we are inundated with CGI games that effortlessly offer us multiple choices for specific outcomes. We make one choice and our character is killed. We simply rewind, back up and start over, making another choice and hoping to emerge victorious, the master of our fantasy scenario. In the 1980's however this was a "new" twist, a new concept--the role of both chance and parallel histories.
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (1991) took Cannes and the world by storm in 1991--despite its nonsensical plot premise and unorthodox structure, liberally mixing non-linear and parallel storylines with metaphysical postulates. I feel that it is a classic, a barn burner, a trend setter, and it is not to be missed.
Movie Review: Absorbing Tale of Love With Marvellous Moods., 8 Oct 2007
Summary: 4 Stars
Plot:
Although oblivious to the other's existence, Veronika, an aspiring Polish soprano, and V?ronique, a Parisian music teacher, gradually become aware that they are connected to a spiritual twin.
My Review:
His earliest film to date that undertakes the acting of Ir?ne Jacob.
The themes embellished are of a deep mysterious balance of fate upon the lives of two women sharing more that several physical and psychological traits. It doesn't push the idea of them being linked by pure coincidence or a grander design, just touches on it and lets you decide for yourself.
The mosaic shots really do emphasise the warmth of the worlds inhabited by Veronika in Krakow and V?ronique in Paris, with a score that balance them as much as each other. The style is almost the same as the Three Colours trilogy, as Jacob would be in the concluding part. Nevertheless, the one of the most enjoyable incomplete scenes is of the reverie by the tree, leaving it to the audiences mind to fill in the gaps.
Compelling, intricate and visually beautiful, you would get the sense of a mood and almost dreamlike structure to it, as if it had been filmed on the warmth of a lazy Summer afternoon. Krzysztof Kieslowski: rest in peace.
Verdict:
Kieslowski shows why modern day Dramas like Haggis's emotionally contrived 'Crash' tries to 'Hollywood' the real impact of love, grit and realism. 9/10.
Movie Review: One-third good, two-thirds bad
Summary: 3 Stars
A comment on the DVDs, and a comment on the movie.
Both Ir?ne Jacob and the screenwriter comment on how few scenes Kieslowski picked from the vast amount he had shot, to make this short movie. Jacob even says she hardly recognized the film she had worked on when she saw it in the theater. The screenwriter says that five movies could have been made from the scenes shot. -- The movie is one hour 35 minutes long. That leaves four and a half hours for the two Criterion DVDs to show us some of these deleted scenes. Guess what? No deleted scenes. This annoyed me.
As to the film, the first image shows Veronika, the Polish girl, singing ecstatically as the rain falls on her face, while the rest of the chorus has taken refuge from the rain. -- The second image is of her making love passionately to her boyfriend. She is innocent, beautiful, full of promise, and doomed to die at a young age.
The two V?roniques cross paths when the French girl is on a tour bus and sees the Polish girl standing in a square where a political demonstration is taking place.
The Polish girl's segment lasts 28 minutes, and is wonderful. Each image seems to weigh on us, to pull us in by its meaning as well as its beauty. When Veronika dies of a heart attack in the middle of a concert, we share her view of the dirt being tossed onto her body under the ground. All these images are memorable.
The second part is a different story. The French V?ronique is a music teacher who becomes fascinated by a soulful puppeteer. He gives her mysterious signs that he loves her, and they make love in the penultimate scene of the movie.
This is a clich?, this has been done. One example is LILI with Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer, 1954. This story is stale, and the second two-thirds of the movie feel stale compared to the first 28 minutes. V?ronique's relationship with the puppeteer, as other reviewers have observed, leaves us unmoved.
As in his other films, Kieslowski inserts subtle parallels between the two stories. A strand of twine attaching pages of music is twisted by the Polish girl; later the French girl receives a shoelace in the mail. The little clear ball is seen in both episodes. A woman who looks at the Polish girl with strange hostility is matched by a woman in the French train station who looks at V?ronique in a similar way. The puppeteer's ballerina dies much as the Polish girl died.
The climax of the movie is when the puppeteer discovers a picture of the Polish girl in the French girl's purse. Seeing it, she is overcome with grief. He makes love to her, and her sobs of grief gradually turn into gasps of pleasure and finally orgasm. To me this scene is dramatically unseemly, a sort of cop-out. Something far better should have been here. But something far better than the puppeteer should have filled the last hour.
With enough scenes to make five movies, Kieslowski settled on this one-hour story of the girl and the puppeteer. I think he made a mistake, a fatal error in judgment. This kind of error can be seen in his other films as well. Failure to use the best scenes to the best effect, lapsing into banality when he should be at his best. Missing the opportunity to put in the scene that would have made the film a classic.
He once described himself as "just so-so" as a filmmaker. I think that is accurate. He has great moments, but too many weak moments.
Movie Review: Double lives
Summary: 5 Stars
The late director Krzysztof Kieslowski had a magical style, and a subtle way of weaving exquisite stories with light and colour.
And one of his finest films is "The Double Life of Veronique" ("La Double vie de V?ronique"). It's not just a philosophical, arty film, but a subtle and unique tale full of Kieslowski's directorial magic, and gives Ir?ne Jacob a chance to shine in her most challenging role.
There are two women, the Polish Weronika and the French Veronique (both played by Ir?ne Jacob). They have never met, never spoken, and do not know that the other exists. They share the same losses and the same health. Weronika is a singer, and Veronique is taking singing lessons. But their lives and souls are bound together, and their personalities are yin-yang opposites, one practical and one a stargazer.
What is more, each has the strange feeling that she is, somehow, not alone in the world. One night, Weronika dies onstage while singing. Suddenly in France, Veronique is stricken with a strange feeling, and stops taking her lessons. Weronika has died, but she still lives. Soon she begins to explore, searching for the truth about her double life, and a strange puppeteer who somehow is a link between both girls.
"Double Life of Veronique" is one of those rare films that manages to combine beauty and depth, with a great lead actress and brilliant director. And there's a luminous, quiet quality to the film that not many movies are able to convey, from the beginning to end.
And it's wrapped with just enough ambiguity to leave you wondering what it's all about. Is it about twin souls, love, sacrifice, fate, politics, being puppets in the grand scehem of things, or just about some mysterious dimension of the spiritual? Even the ending is ambiguous; Kieslowski allows you to wonder whether happiness or grief is in the cards.
One thing you can be sure of -- Krzysztof Kieslowski's direction is impeccable. His use of light and shadow, and the atmospheric music, make "Double Life" practically a work of art. He dots the film with plenty of little hints about the inner states of the characters -- the stars and leaves show that one woman is a dreamer, one down-to-earth. Kieslowski also used a minimalist approach to dialogue, often using pauses and silence that speak louder than the ordinary words.
At times this film seems like a love letter on film to Ir?ne Jacob. Not only is she followed constantly by the camera, but her character is difficult but rewarding. Jacob shines without really seeming to, with the emotion and wonder of a small child in an adult body. Philippe Volter's aura of mystery adds to his excellent acting in his too-brief scenes. But few of the other characters are given much dimension -- the whole focus is on Weronika and Veronique.
This bewitching tale of love, loss, and interconnected souls winds a spell around your screen, and leaves you feeling a little sad. Interpret it as you will, but be sure that Kieslowski's "Double Life of Veronique" is exquisite.
Movie Review: Essential cinema: Kieslowski's 'La double vie de V?ronique.'
Summary: 5 Stars
Based on a small subplot in the ninth episode of The Decalogue (Special Edition Complete Set), Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's (1941-1996) The Double Life of V?ronique ("La double vie de V?ronique") (1991) is a French and Polish language film that follows the lives of two young women, Weronika in Poland, and then V?ronique in France (both played by the beautiful Ir?ne Jacob). Giving the film a mysterious quality, the two unrelated, highly-cultured women share many personality traits, and seem to be aware of each other on some intuitive level, though they never actually meet. Weronika is passionate about her career as a Polish choir soprano. V?ronique abandons her own similar career as a French music teacher while becoming involved with a man, a puppeteer, who seems fascinated with her double nature.
The Double Life of V?ronique is among my all-time personal film favorites, and it consistently ranks in critical top movie lists. To compliment the enigmatic plot, Slawomir Idziak's cinematography and colors are ethereal. The Criterion edition offers an amazingly crisp digital transfer of the film, with a clear soundtrack and score by Zbigniew Preisner, and an alternate U.S. ending.
G. Merritt
Poland Video
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