DVD The Double Life of Veronique - Criterion Collection
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Review(s): DVD The Double Life of Veronique - Criterion Collection | |
| Criterion scores again with an amazing special edition! |  |
When The Double Life of Veronique was screened at the Cannes Film Festival it not only brought international acclaim and attention to its director Krzysztof Kieslowski but also to the film's star, Irene Jacob. At the time, the 24-year-old Swiss actress was virtually unknown but she would go on to even greater acclaim when she teamed up with Kieslowski again on Red, the final film in his Three Colours trilogy.
Criterion has gone all out with this edition managing to improve the already impressive MK2 region 2 release. There is a 64-page booklet that features an excellent collection of essays pertaining to the movie.
The first disc features an audio commentary by Kieslowski biographer Annette Insdorf. She points out that Kieslowski got his start making documentaries and that The Double Life of Veronique saw him moving into a "deeply poetic brand of cinematic storytelling." Insdorf, who contributed commentaries for Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy, delivers a thoughtful track with excellent insight and analysis that is very accessible.
Also included are three short documentaries that Kieslowski made - Factory (1970), Hospital (1976) and Railway (1980) along with The Musicians (1958) made by Kazimierz Karabasz, a great influence on the Polish director. These are interesting glimpses at Kieslowski's progression as a filmmaker.
There is also "The U.S. Ending." Miramax distributed the film in North America and its head, Harvey Weinstein, asked Kieslowski to make it less ambiguous. Included is this additional footage that provides a neater resolution.
The second disc starts off with "Kieslowski - Dialogue," a 1991 documentary on the making of The Double Life of Veronique. There is lots of fantastic on-the-set footage of the man at work directing his actors. This documentary provides fascinating insight into the film and the filmmaker.
"1966-1988: Kieslowski, Polish Filmmaker" is a 2005 documentary that takes a look at his work in Poland. It traces his development as a filmmaker through the 1960s to the 1980s making short films, documentaries and feature films.
"Slawomir Idziak" is an interview with the film's cinematographer. Idziak mentions that many of Kieslowski's collaborators weren't thrilled with Jacob's screen tests but when his daughter and her friends loved what they saw, the director realized he was making a movie for young people and that he had found the right person for the role.
Also included is an interview with long-time Kieslowski composer Zbigniew Preisner. He praises the director for being the down-to-earth type and talks about the challenges of being a composer in Poland.
Finally, there is a wonderful interview with Irene Jacob. She talks about the first Kieslowski film she saw and the first time she met him. It was an audition for The Double Life of Veronique and he asked her to improvise. It lasted all afternoon and she was thrilled just to work with him for that day. Two weeks later, he interviewed her and she got the part. Jacob speaks eloquently about working on the film, her technique and her experience with Kieslowski.
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| Mystical, Magical, Sexual, Alluring, The Kind Of Story Few Americans Could Make | |
This, Krzysztof Kieslowski's greatest film, is the sort of story that approaches a part of the mind few people ever utilize. Set in both Krakow, Poland during the fall of Communism, and France during the same period, The Two Lives of Veronica concerns a pair of young women, played with total perfection by the beautiful Irène Jacob, who, though all intents and purposes it can be said never meet, were born on the same night, lost their mothers at the same age, were raised to young adulthood by their fathers, and who are all-but identical to one another in appearance. Weronika, the carefree Polish woman, is a gifted singer. Véronique, Weronika's moody French "doppelganger" teaches music at a public school. Where Weronika is outgoing and happy, Véronique is deeper, quieter, more pensive.
We begin the first third of the film with the story mostly centered around Weronika's life in Poland, where she has recently moved from a small town into Krakow, away from her father. She is fond of an aunt there, a woman who reads Tarot cards for her niece and foretells that which she says is to come in her future. "All the women in our family die suddenly," she tells Weronika,. "Your mother died suddenly, I will die suddenly, and so shall you." Weronika is too young and joyous to think of such a thing and only wishes to know about love. She has a boyfriend, a black leather jacketed rebel whose anti-Communist and pro-western views are symbolized by his reverence for the motorcycle we see him riding in most of the scenes. Weronika makes love to the young man while standing in a doorway in the rain, something she, raised in a pastoral region, would never have had the courage to do before her move to the city, and she feels at that instant that all is perfection. Beautiful, heedless, aglow with the way her life is unfolding, Weronika is envied for the sheer joy she feels. She also possesses a lovely voice, and while untrained, her raw talent is soon recognized by the directors of a local symphony. Given the chance to premiere a musical work re-discovered after several centuries in obscurity, Weronika is thrilled. She steps onto the stage on opening night, and begins her performance.
Meanwhile, at that precise instant in France, Véronique feels herself suddenly emotionally overcome. It is as if in one moment of immense feeling she has suddenly lost possession of her own being. Confused, she goes thru her life during the weeks that follow merely undertaking the motions of normality. She teaches school, she takes her students to see a wondrously artistic puppet show, and she sleeps with several men. Still feeling herself lost, cut off from who she'd always thought herself to be, she even agrees to help a friend by making a ruinously cruel accusation against a man she does not even know. Puzzled by her own conduct, Véronique is finally led to the pinnacle of harsh understanding by a strange, remotely threatening figure of a man who comes to be in her life, almost against her wishes. The revelation of the reason for her state---which we already knew---comes as little relief to Véronique, and while she comprehends that she has spent her entire life as part of a unique miracle of bi-location, there is little consolation to it all.
The things one sees and feels in this film, from masterful location shots, to sudden shocks of plot development, to the scene with the beautiful puppet show, all these are so distinctly, unhurriedly European that I'm convinced no American could have made this film in exactly this way. The score Zbigniew Preisner composed for this wonderful film is unforgettable, as well. Above all else the vibrant performance Irène Jacob grants in playing two greatly different women is the best of her career. This touching motion picture strikes deep into the human spirit.
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| The dream like movie of Krzysztof Kieslowski | |
A woman is griped by a sudden sense of sadness. She is grieving but she is not sure why or for what. The feeling that something has gone missing in the world haunts her.
Such is the start of the movie "The Double Life of Veronique".
An odd chance encounter with a children's book author and a puppeteer helps Veronique to get insights into her condition and feelings. The puppeteer thinks he is making up yet another one of his stories, but unbeknown to him he is helping Veronique unlock the secrets of her existence.
I found the movie "Double Life" the most dream like and the most mystical of all Kieslowski's movies that I had seen. In fact it isn't a movie, I would call it visual poetry. Since the plot and story are only a pretext to engage you on a subconscious level. The movie is starring actress Irene Jacobe and in the movie she is beautiful, child like in her innocence and passion for life. Yet a grown woman in her physical appearance. In the movie we get to see her in various states of dress and undress. As I watched the movie I had the feeling as if Kieslowski was in love with Irene Jacobe and he made the movie so that he could make love to her with his camera. The movie is erotic to the extreme, yet lovely and innocent in a way I can't explain.
I am not going to tell you the ending, but the only thing I will say is that only Kieslowski could make a movie that has a tragically sad and immensely happy ending all at once.
There were a couple of elements I didn't understand in the movie. I am sure they are in there for a reason, but I simply haven't been able to place them. The whole subplot where Veronique agrees to testify in court that she slept with her friend's ex ... what was that about? The other thing I didn't understand was the symbolism of Veronique rubbing a ring against her eye lashes.
I feel like I need to go see the movie again to fully understand it.
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