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La Double vie de Véronique (1991)
Krzysztof Kieslowski | Drama / Romance |
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Synopsis
Weronika is a young concert singer who lives in Poland with her father. One day,
she glimpses a woman on a coach who looks exactly like her. A short while later
Weronika dies suddenly of a heart attack whilst giving a concert recital. Meanwhile,
her double on the coach, Véronique, has returned to Paris, where she works as a
music teacher and takes singing lessons. For no apparent reason, Véronique
is suddenly prompted to give up her singing career. Soon after, she watches a marionette
performance, in which a young woman dies and come back to life as a butterfly. She
then receives a mysterious phone call from a stranger and unexpected items through the
post. Feeling she is in love without knowing why, Véronique pieces these
clues together and meets up at a station café with the marionette player, Alexandre.
He tells Véronique of a story about two young identical women born on the same
time, living miles apart. One of the women dies, and the other lives, inexplicably
sensing her loss...
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La Double vie de Véronique
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Film Review
Anyone who was impressed by Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs trilogy will
appreciate this earlier film, which is made in a very similar vein. It also features
the captivating Irène Jacob, who won the best actress award at Cannes in 1991 for
her role in this film. It is a baffling yet thoroughly absorbing work, anchored
more firmly in the twilight zone of the paranormal than in the real world.
Kieslowski takes a simple idea – the notion that each one of us has an identical twin somewhere in the world – and fashions a haunting and poetic tale of seemingly endless profundity about it. The film appears to have the simplicity of a children’s fairy tale, yet, if you look closer, layers and layers of detail become apparent. The amber-drenched photography, the sweeping camera movements and the recurring symbols (for example, the pedestrian crossing) all serve to give the impression that we are experiencing a dream, or, at least, we are looking at reality through a distorting prism. Because it feels like a dream, there is no need to explain what we see – indeed any attempt and trying to make sense of the narrative would be a futile exercise. Like much of Kieslowski’s work, La Double vie de Véronique is less about telling a story than providing an experience. Somewhere between ghost story and a traditional romance, the film manages to latch onto the spectator’s senses without feeling the need to justify itself. At one level, it is a magnificent abstract work of art; at another, it is a captivating piece of cinema which leaves a lasting impression. © James Travers 2001 Write a review for this film... User Comments
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