"I have a strange feeling...."
The Double Life of Veronique saw Krysztof Kieslowski (1941-1996) moving away from the
social concerns of films like A Short Film about Killing (1988),
and focusing on the supernatural elements that often touched his work. There
was always an otherness to Kieslowski’s films; the suggestion of something
beyond our understanding. No End (1984)
is the most obvious example, with a ghost watching over his ex-wife during a
period of political unrest. Tellingly the living and the dead both seem as sad
and lost as each other. The Double Life of Veronique is an
enigmatic tale of two identical women, Weronika and Veronique, living uncannily
similar lives.
Kieslowski claimed not to be interested in
politics, but making films under an authoritarian and censorious regime meant
there were always restrictions placed upon him. The Double Life of Veronique is Kieslowski’s first film made
without fear of outside interference. At one point Weronika walks in a
different direction from a political march in Krakow ,
oblivious to the protesters. Kieslowski seemed to be taking a similar journey,
towards something broader and more universal.
Two physically identical women in two different cities; both are
singers, both have weak hearts. There is a moment when they almost meet.
Weronika (Irene Jacob) is astonished to see a woman who looks exactly like her
amongst a group of French tourists. As her doppelganger boards a bus Weronika
runs after her and Veronique (Jacob) inadvertently takes her photograph.
Kieslowski and cinematographer Slawomir Idziak make the world seem far more
beautiful than it normally is bathing it in a permanent golden haze.
Photographs, reflections, twin dolls; doubles haunt the film. Often images are
distorted by glass, to add to the feeling of otherness.
Weronika is full of life. First seen singing in
a choir, she keeps singing long after her colleagues have stopped and sought
shelter from the rain. She experiences a rapture bordering on the religious.
Music also links the two women. Weronika dies during a concert when her heart
gives out. Veronique is immediately struck by a feeling of grief. The next day she visits her singing teacher and
tells him she is giving up. Veronique seems more tentative than Weronika, more
hesitant and troubled, yet we only get to know her after she is affected by
this inexplicable feeling of suddenly being alone.
Veronique is drawn towards Alexandre (Philippe Volter), a puppeteer
who visits the school she teaches at to perform a marionette show. Alexandre
begins to reappear in Veronique’s life as if by coincidence. Veronique retreats
from Alexandre when he claims he wants to use her as inspiration for a novel,
but they spend a night together in a hotel. Though The Double Life of Veronique presents
the doppelganger as being like a lost sibling, there is a brief reminder that
the idea of an exact double is often used as a source of terror. Alexandre
looks through the photo-reels from Krakow and
shows Veronique the picture of a woman he assumes to be her. Yet
Veronique knows she took the photo, and she never owned clothes like the one
the girl (Weronika) is wearing.
Alexandre creates a story for his marionette
show about identical girls; one of whom burns her hand badly by touching a
stove, but the other pulls away at the last moment as if influenced by the pain
visited upon her double. Veronique backs away from Alexandre and leaves him to
his puppets. Kieslowski too shies away from revealing any more as if like
Veronique he feels the implications are too much to bear. Kieslowski announced
his retirement shortly after the release of Three Colours: Red (1994), despite the film’s commercial
and critical success. Like Veronique he returned home. Like Weronika his heart
failed him.
Kieslowski commented on the difficulties of
conveying “the realm of superstitions, fortune-telling, presentiments,
intuition, dreams.” (1) For Kieslowski these make up the inner-life of a human
being and no filmmaker since his death has been able to deal with these themes
as effectively. German director Tom Twyker tried with the stylish but empty Blind Chance (1981) knock-off Lola Rennt (1998), and the ghastly euro-pudding Heaven (2002), based on an unfinished screenplay
by Kieslowski and his regular collaborator Krysztof Piesiewicz. There is no
other self out there, another Kieslowski, a doppelganger blessed with the same
ability to ask metaphysical questions with a sublime grace.
1.
p 194 Kieslowski on Kieslowski. Faber
& Faber 1995
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