Krzysztof Kieslowski (Director)
My favorite podcast Filmspotting is doing a Kieslowski marathon. I am not sure if this film is on tap to be reviewed on the show, but I hope that it is. Double Life is a movie about two unrelated women. Both of whom are played by the stunning Mrs Jacob. These women have some sort of a bond between them. It is never really explained by more that a few sentences in the movie. The women look almost exactly alike, and both have a feeling that they are not alone in this world. Other than that there is no interaction between them. Weronika sees Veronique on a bus and Veronique accidentally takes a picture of Weronika, but that is as close as they ever get to realizing that they may be another person sharing their lives.
Weronika is a young beautiful singer living in Poland who has a deadly illness. Veronique is a beautiful music teacher living in France who has a puppeteer admirer sort of stalking her through the picture. Their stories are told one at a time with little overlap.
The entire film has a dreamy mood to it. The use of color and shadow in the film is amazing. I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, after lambasting Susperia (Movie #82) for its bold use of color for no reason. But I don't entirely understand why the color palate was chosen, or why certain scenes were infused with soft greens, reds and yellows. But it worked. I felt almost drunk watching this film.
Another thing that I really liked about the movie was the use of the POV (Point Of View) shots. They shots would often go from a master or a two shot into a POV without an edit. This helped give the film that dream like quality. That along with upside down shots and a few other off axis shots also made you question if what you are seeing is real. I read up on the movie a little and apparently the music within is a big deal. It is operatic and fits the style of the film very well. Zbigniew Preisner is the artist behind the music.
I really enjoyed this movie. It left me wanting to see more works of Kieslowski. I give The Double Life of Veronique ★★★1/2. Check out the Trailer Par to see for yourself. This movie is available on Blu Ray through Criterion Collection. I highly recommend seeing it on Blu if you can.
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