The Double Life of Veronique

The Double Life of Veronique
Promotional poster showing Irène Jacob Promotional poster
Directed by	Krzysztof Kieślowski
Produced by	Leonardo De La Fuente
Written by	Krzysztof Kieślowski Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Starring	Irène Jacob Philippe Volter Sandrine Dumas Aleksander Bardini Louis Ducreux Claude Duneton Halina Gryglaszewska Kalina Jędrusik
Music by	Zbigniew Preisner
Cinematography	Sławomir Idziak
Edited by	Jacques Witta
Production company	Sidéral Productions Zespól Filmowy "X" Norsk Film Canal+
Distributed by	Sidéral Films (France) Miramax (United States)
Release dates	15 May 1991 (1991-05-15) (France)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	France Poland Norway
Language	French Polish
Box office	$2 million (USA)

The Double Life of Veronique (French: La double vie de Véronique, Polish: Podwójne życie Weroniki) is a 1991 drama film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and starring Irène Jacob. Written by Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, the film explores the themes of identity, love, and human intuition through the characters of Weronika, a Polish choir soprano, and her double, Véronique, a French music teacher. The two women do not know each other, and yet they share a mysterious and emotional bond that transcends language and geography.

The Double Life of Véronique was Kieślowski's first film to be produced partly outside his native Poland. It won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, and the Best Actress Award for Jacob. The Double Life of Véronique was selected as the Polish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot

In Poland in 1968, a little girl is shown the stars in the winter sky by her mother, who identifies the Christmas Eve star. In France, a little girl is shown one of the first leaves of spring by her mother, who points out the fine veins running through.

In 1990, a young Polish woman named Weronika (Irène Jacob) is singing at an outdoor concert with her choir when a sudden downpour causes the singers to rush for cover. After Weronika holds the last note alone, she meets her boyfriend, Antek (Jerzy Gudejko), and they go to his apartment to have sex. The next day she asks her father to tell Antek she is leaving to be with her sick aunt in Kraków. Mentioning that lately she feels that she is not alone in the world.

Weronika travels to Kraków by train and meets up with her aunt, she later contacts a local friend meets up at her choir practice. As the choir rehearses, Weronika accompanies them in her soprano voice off-stage. Afterwards, the musical director asks her to audition. Overjoyed, Weronika rushes home with the sheet music. While walking through a square in the midst of a protest, Weronika notices a French tourist taking photos of the protestors—a young woman who looks exactly like her. Weronika smiles as she watches her double board the tourist bus that soon pulls away.

At the audition, Weronika's singing impresses the musical director and conductor, and she is later told that she won the audition. While heading home after the audition, Weronika suffers a mild cardiac arrest but she recovers. The next day, Weronika reunites with Antek. That night during the concert, while singing a solo part, Weronika collapses onstage and dies of a heart attack.

In Clermont-Ferrand, France that same day, Véronique (Irène Jacob), a young French woman and Weronika's double. Becomes overwhelmed with grief after having sex with her boyfriend. She later goes to her music teacher, telling him she's quitting the choir. The next day, at the school where she teaches music, Véronique attends a marionette performance with her class about a ballet dancer who breaks her leg and then turns into a butterfly. She then leads her class in a musical piece by an eighteenth-century composer, Van den Budenmayer—the same piece performed by Weronika when she died. That night while driving home, she sees the puppeteer at a traffic light motioning to her not to light the wrong end of her cigarette. Later she is awakened by a phone call with no one speaking, only a choir singing the music of Van den Budenmayer. Véronique visits her father the next day, where she reveals she is in love with someone she doesn't know, and that recently she felt that she lost someone from her life. Back in Clermont Ferrand, she receives a package containing a shoelace, which she compares to her EKG graph, and a stranger shines light on her using a mirror.

Véronique learns that the puppeteer is a children's book author named Alexandre Fabbri (Philippe Volter). Who based the marionette on one of her books and has written another about a shoelace. In the coming days, Véronique reads several of Alexandre's books. When Véronique visits her father, he gives her a package addressed to her containing a cassette tape. She listens to the tape, which contains the recordings of a typewriter, footsteps, a door opening, a train station, and a fragment of music by Van den Budenmayer. There are also sounds of a car accident and explosion. The postage stamp on the envelope leads Véronique to the Gare Saint-Lazare train station in Paris. She goes to a cafe in the station where she believes the recordings were made, and sees Alexandre. He tells her he's been waiting for her for two days, that he's working on a new book, and that he send her the packages as a kind of experiment to see if she would come to him. Angered at being manipulated, Véronique leaves and checks into a nearby hotel. She rans into Alexandre, who asks for her forgiveness, and she brings him up to her room, where they both fall asleep. During the night, they confess their feelings for each other.

The next morning, while talking to Alexandre, Véronique says that she feels that "I was here and somewhere else at the same time" and that she feels that someone has been guiding her life. Véronique proceeds to show Alexandre the contents of her handbag, and he comes across a proof sheet of photos taken on Véronique's recent trip to Poland. Alexandre notices what he thinks is a photo of Véronique, but she assures him it is not her, she then sees the picture, realizing that it was Weronika in the picture. Véronique is overwhelmed and breaks down crying as Alexandre comforts her. It becomes clear that Weronika's fate has somehow compelled Véronique to stop singing and avoid the same death.

Some time later at his apartment, Véronique sees Alexandre working on a new marionette with her image. When asked about the purpose of a second identical marionette, Alexandre explains that he needs an additional puppet in case another becomes damaged. He shows her how to work the one marionette while the double lies lifeless on the table. Alexandre reads his new book to Véronique about two women, born the same day in different cities, who have a mysterious connection. Later that day, Véronique arrives at her father's house, stops at the front gate, and reaches out and touches an old tree trunk. Her father, who is inside the house, seems to sense her presence.

Cast

• Irène Jacob as Weronika, and Véronique
• Halina Gryglaszewska as The aunt
• Kalina Jędrusik as The Gaudy Woman
• Aleksander Bardini as The Orchestra Conductor
• Władysław Kowalski as Weronika's father
• Guillaume De Tonquédec as Serge
• Jerzy Gudejko as Antek
• Philippe Volter as Alexandre Fabbri
• Sandrine Dumas as Catherine
• Janusz Sterninski as The lawyer
• Louis Ducreux as The professor
• Claude Duneton as Véronique's father
• Lorraine Evanoff as Claude
• Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus as Jean-Pierre
• Chantal Neuwirth as The receptionist
• Alain Frérot as The postman
• Youssef Hamid as The railroader
• Thierry de Carbonnières as The teacher
• Nausicaa Rampony as Nicole
• Boguslawa Schubert as The woman in the hat
• Jacques Potin as The Man in the gray coat

Production

Filming style

The film has a strong metaphysical element, though the supernatural aspect of the story is never explained. Like the later Three Colours: 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; the cinematographer, Sławomir Idziak, had previously experimented with these techniques in one episode of Dekalog, and Kieślowski would later use colour for a wider range of effects in his Three Colours 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 Dekalog.

Filming locations

The film was shot at locations including Clermont-Ferrand, Kraków and Paris.

Alternative ending

A Criterion Collection region 1 DVD was released in November 2006 in the United States and Canada, which includes an alternative ending which Kieślowski changed in the edit at the request of Harvey Weinstein of Miramax for the American release. Kieślowski added four brief shots to the end of the film showing Véronique's father emerging from the house and Véronique running across the yard to embrace him. The final image of the father and daughter embracing is shot from inside the house through a window.

Music

The film was scored by Zbigniew Preisner. In the film his music is described as being by Van den Budenmayer, a fictitious 18th-century Dutch composer created by Preisner and Kieślowski for attributions in screenplays. Music "by" the Dutch composer plays a role in two other Kieślowski films: Dekalog (1988), and Three Colours: Blue (1993) in which a theme from his musique funebres is quoted in the Song for the Unification of Europe. Its E minor soprano solo is prefigured in Weronika's final performance.

Puppetry

The puppet acts in The Double Life of Véronique were performed by American puppeteer and sculptor Bruce Schwartz. Unlike most puppeteers who usually hide their hands in gloves or use strings or sticks, Schwartz shows his hands while performing.

Reception

Critical response

The Double Life of Veronique received mostly positive reviews. In her review in Not Coming to a Theater Near You, Jenny Jediny wrote, "In many ways, The Double Life of Veronique is a small miracle of cinema; ... Kieslowski’s strong, if largely post-mortem reputation among the art house audience has elevated a film that makes little to no sense on paper, while its emotional tone strikes a singular—perhaps perfect—key."

In his review in The Washington Post, Hal Hinson called the film "a mesmerizing poetic work composed in an eerie minor key." Noting that the effect on the viewer is subtle but very real, Hinson concluded, "The film takes us completely into its world, and in doing so, it leaves us with the impression that our own world, once we return to it, is far richer and portentous than we had imagined." Hinson was particularly impressed with Jacob's performance:

This is an actress with an uncanny openness and vulnerability to the camera. She's beautiful, but in a completely unconventional way, and she has such changeable features that our interest is never exhausted. What's remarkable about her performance is how quiet it is; as an actress, she seems to work almost off the decibel scale. And yet she is remarkably alive on screen, remarkably present. She's a rare combination—a sexy yet soulful actress.

In her review in The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, "Veronique is poetic in the truest sense, relying on images that can't be turned into prosaic statements without losing something of their essence. The film suggests mysterious connections of personality and emotion, but it was never meant to yield any neat, summary idea about the two women's lives."

In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote, "The movie has a hypnotic effect. We are drawn into the character, not kept at arm's length with a plot." Ebert singled out Sławomir Idziak's innovative use of color and cinematography:

This is one of the most beautiful films I've seen. The cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, finds a glow in Irene Jacob's pre-Raphaelite beauty. He uses a rich palette, including insistent reds and greens that don't "stand" for anything but have the effect of underlining the other colors. The other color, blending with both, is golden yellow, and then there are the skin tones. Jacob, who was 24 when the film was made, has a flawless complexion that the camera lingers near to. Her face is a template waiting for experience to be added.

In 2009, Ebert added The Double Life of Veronique to his Great Movies list. Krzysztof Kieślowski's Dekalog and The Three Colours Trilogy are also on the list.

In his review for Empire Online, David Parkinson called it "a film of great fragility and beauty, with the delicacy of the puppet theatre." He thought the film was "divinely photographed" by Slawomir Idziak, and praised Irène Jacob's performance as "simply sublime and thoroughly merited the Best Actress prize at Cannes." Parkinson saw the film as "compelling, challenging and irresistibly beautiful" and a "metaphysical masterpiece."

At the All Movie web site, the film received a 4-star rating (out of 5) plus "High Artistic Quality" citation. At About.com, which specializes in DVD reviews, the film received 5 stars (out of 5) in their critical review. At BBC, the film received 3 stars (out of 5). Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film five stars out of five. On the aggregate reviewer website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an 85% positive rating from critics based on 26 reviews.

Box office performance

The film was the 50th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 592,241 admissions in France. In North America the film opened on one screen grossing $8,572 its opening weekend. In total the film grossed $1,999,955 at the North American box office playing at a total of 22 theaters in its widest release which is a respectable result for a foreign art film.

Home media

A digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection. The release includes audio commentary by Annette Insdorf, author of Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski; three short documentary films by Kieślowski: Factory (1970), Hospital (1976), and Railway Station (1980); The Musicians (1958), a short film by Kieślowski's teacher Kazimierz Karabasz; Kieślowski’s Dialogue (1991), a documentary featuring a candid interview with Kieślowski and rare behind-the-scenes footage from the set of The Double Life of Véronique; 1966-1988: Kieślowski, Polish Filmmaker, a 2005 documentary tracing the filmmaker's work in Poland, from his days as a student through The Double Life of Veronique; a 2005 interview with actress Irène Jacob; and new video interviews with cinematographer Slawomir Idziak and composer Zbigniew Preisner. It also includes a booklet featuring essays by Jonathan Romney, Slavoj Zizek, and Peter Cowie, and a selection from Kieślowski on Kieślowski.

Awards and nominations

• 1991 Cannes Film Festival Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won
• 1991 Cannes Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won
• 1991 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress (Irène Jacob) Won
• 1991 Cannes Film Festival nomination for the Golden Palm (Krzysztof Kieślowski)
• 1991 Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Music (Zbigniew Preisner) Won
• 1991 Warsaw International Film Festival Audience Award (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won
• 1991 French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Foreign Film Won
• 1992 César Awards Nomination for Best Actress (Irène Jacob)
• 1992 César Awards nomination for Best Music Written for a Film (Zbigniew Preisner)
• 1992 Golden Globe Awards nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
• 1992 Guldbagge Awards nomination for Best Foreign Film
• 1992 Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Foreign Film
• 1992 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film Won

In July 2021, the film was shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

See also

• List of submissions to the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Polish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

External links

• The Double Life of Veronique at IMDb
• The Double Life of Veronique at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Double Life of Veronique at AllMovie
• The Double Life of Veronique: The Forced Choice of Freedom an essay by Slavoj ŽiŽek at the Criterion Collection
• The Double Life of Veronique: Through the Looking Glass an essay by Jonathan Romney at the Criterion Collection