Around the World in 24 Frames 12.31.10: The Double Life of Véronique
Posted by Len Archibald on 12.31.2010
A tale of two women who share the same name, same face, same talent, but different lives. Poland's pride.
Merry belated Christmas to all!
Apologies for the hiatus last week; let me give you all some advice: do not attempt to give 100% to bringing a large-scale film festival, while trying to balance two weekly articles, a marriage, a job and take up singing and choreography for a stage show during Christmas season. Blah. I am happy to be back in my element with you guys. Thank you so much for the emails of support and generally checking up on my ass. I feel deep down that this column is going to be short and to the point, unlike most of my past efforts - so I hope my haste doesn't disappoint.
Did you know I write for the wrestling zone as well? Check out "Hitting The Mark"!
There are some exciting times ahead – we haven't even officially opened for submissions, but we already have a few, and we are now an INTERNATIONAL festival. Brilliant!
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I love movies. They represent escapism, art, intellect and spirituality. Some are nothing more than popcorn flicks, designed to ease the burden of "real-life" for a couple of hours. Some bring important issues to the forefront that challenges how we perceive our surroundings. The most important thing for me – if one is a serious filmgoer – is to constantly expand and discover new movies. This includes experiencing stories told outside of North America.
Yes, I know: "I don't like to read while I watch movies". Well, neither do I, but I won't use that to prevent me from finding a great story within the screen. It is important, as human beings to discover other cultures and expand our perceptions of those different from us and how they see the world. There are reasons that Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini, Ozu and Truffaut are important in the movie world – They are just great at what they do.
I intend to highlight a new film every week that is considered "foreign-language"; now that definition is simple, yet broad and complex. For example, if you need subtitles to understand the events of the plot, I will discuss it. If it is a film from a primarily English-speaking nation, but is *NOT* in English (i.e. Leolo or Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner from Canada), I will discuss. If it is a film from outside the U.S. and it *is* in English, I will not discuss (sorry, Brits & Aussies) – for now. My goal is to shed light on some of these gems, and help quell the insatiable appetites for those who can't live without seeing a new movie. Enjoy!
La double vie de Véronique : Podwójne życie Weroniki aka The Double Life of Véronique
Country: Poland
Release Date: May 15th, 1991
Runtime: 98 min
Distributed by Miramax
Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski
Cast:
Irène Jacob
Anna Gornostaj
Halina Gryglaszewska
Kalina Jędrusik
Aleksander Bardini
Władysław Kowalski
Guillaume De Tonquédec
Jerzy Gudejko
Philippe Volter
Bruce Schwartz
Sandrine Dumas
At the opening ceremony of the 1996 Cannes film festival, Irène Jacob was asked to pay a tribute to Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, who had just passed away two months earlier in March. Her eyes full of tears, completely vulnerable to the universe, stood in her beautiful white dress and with wistful eloquence, spoke highly of her mentor. They had only made two films together; if Kieślowski had lived, they may have wound up being one of the all-time great director/actor pairings, much like Scorsese/DeNiro, Herzog/Kinski and Bergman/Max Von Sydow.
Indeed, Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1991 modern classic, The Double Life of Véronique would not have been as much of success without star Jacob, who served as the nucleus of the film. She balances wonderment, frustration and mystery – sometimes all three at the same time in a dazzling performance that earned her the Best Actress prize at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.
The first twenty-five minutes of The Double Life of Véronique center on the first of two characters portrayed by Jacob, Weronika - a Polish waif with an innocent, yet zealous attitude towards music and we get a glimpse of her life, her cultured disposition, an otherworldly beauty – these are all celebrated in every frame and every shot; almost as if Kieślowski is daring the audience not to fall in love with Irène Jacob and her dual portrayal of two women who are one in the same. Two women who are so enraptured by their love of music that it parallels an unyielding love of God.
Weronika is a happy-go-lucky yet sensual woman as, while visiting an aunt in Krakow and by total chance catches the attention of a choir director by chance and auditions for him for a forthcoming concert. She easily gets the part and while singing over Zbigniew Preisner's haunting score before a full house, she collapses and dies of a heart failure alluded to in an earlier scene. The shot is breathtaking; as it takes on an individual point-of-view – as she collapses, the camera collapses with her, looking through her eyes on the stage. The hushed silence of the crowd pauses before it turns into a frenzy of musicians and audience members coming to her aid.
What follows is one of the great scenes in The Double Life of Véronique, deals with Weronika's death – an unbelievably shot funeral sequence where the camera continues from the dead woman's point-of-view looking up from the grave as a stationary shot as dirt is piled over the frame. From there, the film follows the life of Véronique (Jacob again), a young music teacher living in France. Though unrelated, Weronika and Véronique appear identical, share many personality traits, and seem to be aware of each other on some level, as if they are doppelgängers; but except for a brief glimpse through a bus window in Kraków, they never meet. After Weronika sacrifices everything in the pursuit of a singing career, Véronique abandons her own similar goal because of poor health and attempts to find an independent course for her life, while becoming involved with a man who is fascinated by clues to her double nature. The man is a puppeteer and maker of marionettes, helping raise the questions that are central to the film: is there such a thing as free will, or is it up to a creator of some kind, or is it just a matter of chance that one acts and thinks as one does?
There are several interpretations of The Double Life of Véronique; some wonder if Kieślowski is commenting on the nature of the human spirit and how despite our greatest efforts to not conform and be individuals that we really are just pieces of a grand supernatural puzzle show, playing our parts in harmony. Some wonder if Kieślowski is making an argument for determinism, where he presents a world in which all events, no matter how small or inconsequential, are determined by an unbroken chain of past occurrences. Some wonder if the Polish filmmaker is musing over free will and religion; where Weronika and Veronique are engaged in a parable overseen by one particular character who, as the puppeteer, controls the actions and motivations of his subjects. Some wonder if Kiéslowski's motivation are political, where the Polish Weronika sacrifices her life for the future of Veronique, of France, much like Poland was sacrificed during World War II and its subsequent Soviet Union membership for Western Europe's prosperity?
Like all great works of art, The Double Life of Véronique does not need to be explained – it is a free-flowing tale of isolation and the search for one's true self and their true individuality: it is possible that Weronika and Véronique were in fact living double lives as a rift the universe was torn and the only way to restore balance was for the two of them could join spiritually – where the only way this was possible was through Weronika's death?
The one film that I think of that parallels this one is Tom Twyker's Run Lola Run, where we see a character learn from past mistakes in order to achieve a greater success of belonging. Twyker filmed a movie called Heaven - the scenario was finished by Kieślowski just before his death in 1996. There are rumblings that Run Lola Run is basically a cyber-kinetic remake of Kieślowski's Blind Chance. The lesson of this idea of chance and alternate realities and histories seems to be that we live in a world in which one choice can lead to a catastrophic ending but we can return to the start and make another better choice; one choice that can lead to suicide and tragedy can be reversed by making the correct choice down the road so opportunities aren't missed. In the film, Veronique learns from Weronkia's mistake and decides not to pursue singing as a career and in essence, saves her own life.
While in Paris, Veronique attends a marionette performance with her students, and she sees a puppeteer in the mirror at the side and he sees her. The idea of "love at first sight" seems misplaced in our cynical time and culture. In this film, Veronique simply tells her father, "Papa, I'm in love", and he has no issues. She and the puppeteer, Alexandre (Philippe Volter) share a strange psychic connection as he wildly pursues her with anonymous gifts and tape recordings that serve as nothing more than an audio map so she can find him. When they finally find each other, she admits to Alexandre that she has always felt like she has been in two places at once. Alexandre makes a decision late in the film that serves as the emotional and spiritual climax.
One of the great things about Kieślowski's masterpiece is that it doesn't hit the audience over the head with exposition and explanation, but it evokes feelings of…feelings. The audience is able to understand and relate to Veronique because they understand instinctively their place in the world and how they would feel in this circumstance. It is in fact this instinct and soul of human nature that Kieślowski is constantly searching for and uses Jacob's face as the template for that search. The idea of parallel realities is something I've been very interested in personally – as an avid follower of ABC's hit TV show, Lost, the final episode struck a chord with me as it was revealed that the characters who inhabited that mysterious island were trapped in an alternate timeline that was created by those who passed on at different intervals of time. Each Lost participant was part of this world, but could not put their finger on an emptiness they felt until they were met by another person who represented a lost love in their physical lives. From there, they were able to remember who they were, what they did and the events that transpired to bring them to their grand conclusion. I almost wonder if the producers of Lost watched The Double Life of Véronique and used that as a template for the final season of the famed show.
The film is beautiful to look at: Slawomir Idziak's cinematography discovers an otherworldly aura in Irene Jacob's pre-beauty, as he surrounds her in rich greens and reds in the color palette. There's no meaning for these colors except that they underline other vibrant colors, including the golden yellow tint that envelopes the picture, giving it an autumn-like glow. Kieślowski has admitted that the yellow-green filter used was chosen to offset the grey tones from the locations they shot the film in. When Jacob made the film, she was 24 years old and her skin tone was absolutely flawless – giving the impression that the camera was full of longing and desire to make love to her.
The Double Life of Véronique carries a strong fantasy element, though the supernatural aspect of the story is never explained. Like the later Three Colors: Blue, it showcased Preisner's musical score as a major plot element, crediting his work to the fictional Van den Budenmayer. The cinematography is highly stylized, using color and camera filters to create an ethereal atmosphere; Idziak had previously experimented with these techniques in one episode of The Decalogue, and Kieślowski would later use color for a wider range of effects in his Three Colors trilogy. Kieślowski had earlier used the idea of exploring different paths in life for the same person, in his Polish film Przypadek (Blind Chance), and the central choice faced by Weronika/Véronique is based on a brief subplot in the ninth episode of The Decalogue itself.
Roger Ebert surmises that Kieślowski "…is drawn to coincidence and synchronicity…" and I agree with him. There is little interest on a three-act structure in regards to a character going from Point A to Point B to Point C. Kieślowski is more interested in the second act of a story where a character finds out about themselves, their flaws, their strengths, their wills and their inner being. He finds unseen threads and connection that links the present to the future, the past to the present and the present to the future. Kieślowski structures his film out of emotional details that seem fleeting and fragile. The world he creates seems to reflect nothing more than apparitions; like a photograph that when developed, carries orbs in the picture. There are theories that these orbs represent everything from spirits, angels or metaphysical creatures meant to protect us. It is this orb that Kieślowski seems to be interested in studying.
Kieślowski holds the audience's attention and maintains it in a subliminal and subconscious manner, much like a master magician taking us under a spell. This is a mood piece, a psychological mystery where the audience are detectives searching for a solution for an event that in reaility, has not taken place. The Double Life of Véronique is a self-reflective visual poem that deals with themes of filtering and containment. The film's opening image of sky and earth is reversed, seen by Weronkia as a child held upside-down by her mother. Later on, Weronkia sees the world inverted through a small glass orb in which stars float.
Kieślowski was born in Warsaw, Germany and grew up in several small towns, moving wherever his engineer father, a tuberculosis patient, could find treatment. At sixteen, he briefly attended a firefighters' training school, but dropped out after three months. Without any career goals, he then entered the College for Theatre Technicians in Warsaw in 1957 because it was run by a relative. He decided to become a theatre director, but at the time there was no specific training program for directors, so he chose to study film as an intermediate step. He was raised Roman Catholic and retained what he called a "personal and private" relationship with God. He spent time as a documentary filmmaker before transitioning into a highly successful and critically acclaimed director of imaginative work. Kieślowski died aged 54 on March 13, 1996, during open-heart surgery following a heart attack, and was interred in Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.
According to Kieślowski, he and editor Jaques Witta had created at least twenty versions of The Double Life of Véronique, some more ambiguous that others. The most famous cut that isn't of the original version is the "American" version, where Kieślowski added a minute or so to the ending for its U.S. release, and can be seen on the glorious Criterion DVD. The alternate ending was done at the urging of Harvey Weinstein, then head of Miramax, the film's American distributor. Comparing the two endings makes for an interesting case study in the tradeoff between accessibility and subtlety. The "American" ending doesn't add anything or say anything new. They are simply four shots that were created to appeal to something "Western" – of which we'll never know. That's kind of the main issue with some American distributors and audiences. The incompleteness and floating nature of The Double Life of Véronique is its main charm – it represents the incompleteness of humanity, as we are always evolving "works in progress."
The Double Life of Véronique is currently available on DVD.
Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
Trailer for The Double Life of Véronique
{Film Passport Stamped]
Coming Attractions: A remarkable war film – even moreso because it was animated.
Questions or comments? Completely disagreed with any of my picks? Are you in love with me? Leave comments below or email me at aa24frames@aol.com!!!
