#THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VÉRONIQUE

[oldbrain]

I have a strange feeling. I feel like I'm not alone. Like I'm not alone in the world.

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VÉRONIQUE (1991) | dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

[anothermessagetoyou]

[waste-it-on-something-useful]

Kieslowski: Dialogue (Elizabeth Ayre & Ruben Korenfeld, 1991)

[thegirlwithcollarbones]

In a 1996 interview, Kieślowski summarized the meaning of the trilogy films:

La double vie de Véronique:

Live carefuly, because there are people around you, whose lives and well-being depend on your actions. This concerns all of us, because the paths - these people and their destinies - cross each other all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. That's what responsibility means to me - to live carefully and attentively. We should observe people around us, and most of all ourselves.

Three Colors: Blue

Everything connected with emotions and with objects or with any kind of commitment is a trap. It forces us to give up our freedom. Love also takes away our freedom.

Three Colors: White

I don't think people want to be equal. Everyone wants to be a little better. And that's true for good things as well as bad ones.

Three Colors: Red

"Fraternity" means sympathy, a willingness to help others. The hero tries to convince her that it doesn't exist, but her very presence proves fraternity is possible.

[mallouca]

[byneddiedingo]

Irène Jacob in The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)

Cast: Irène Jacob, Philippe Volter, Sandrine Dumas, Halina Gryglaszewka, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Jerzy Gudejko, Claude Duneton. Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Cinematography: Slawomir Idziak. Production design: Patrice Mercier. Film editing: Jacques Witta. Music: Zbiniew Preiser. 

Krzystof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Véronique is predicated on the ancient idea that everyone has a Doppelgänger -- a physical and sometimes psychic twin. Irène Jacob plays both a Polish woman named Weronika and a French woman named Véronique. Neither is fully aware of the other's existence, although Weronika once tells her father that she doesn't feel alone in the world, and Véronique tells hers that she has a feeling she has lost someone, as indeed she has: Weronika has died. Their paths crossed only once, when Véronique visited Kraków as a tourist, but although Weronika saw her double on a tour bus, Véronique learns of her existence only later, when she examines a photograph she took that includes Weronika. Kieslowski's film, from a screenplay he wrote with Krzysztof Piesewicz, deals with the parallel lives of the two women and with their emotional and symbolic intersections. It's all remarkably done, with a superb performance by Jacob that equals and sometimes surpasses her work in Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red (1994), and extraordinarily expressive cinematography by Slawomir Idziak that manipulates colors with haunting effect. As with Red, however, I feel a bit let down by Kieslowski's tendency to go for sentiment: I'm left with a feeling that there's something hollow at the film's core, a lack of substance underlying the impressive acting and technique. Still, a lesser director than Kieslowski might have gone all the way, to a Hollywood-style romantic ending instead of the somewhat ambiguous one he gives us. 

[dailyworldcinema]

The Double Life of Véronique 1991 | dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

[trash-rules]

“I wondered when you would notice me.”

The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

[cinematicmasterpiece]

la double vie de véronique (1991)

[artfilmfan]

The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)

[jnjo]

His Motorbike, Her Island (1986) dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

The Double Life of Véronique (1991) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

[oldbrain]

SOME OF MY FAVORITE KISSING MOMENTS IN MOVIES

The Double Life Of Véronique (1991)

Paris, Texas (1984)

Comrades Almost A Love Story (1996)

Amélie (2001)

[screenshotingmonstercinema]

[waste-it-on-something-useful]

c[har]a[c]t[er]

Kieslowski: Dialogue (Elizabeth Ayre & Ruben Korenfeld, 1991)

[bluen3hey]

1991  La double vie de Véronique

The Double Life of Veronique

[favorisfilms]

Rare shot of Kieslowski directing Jacob.