The Double Life of Veronique

1991 poetic riddle

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A woman in Paris named Veronique runs into her doppelganger in Poland, falls in love with a puppeteer, and touches a tree.

Have you ever been hypnotized by a poet? Have you ever had one sneak into your dreams when your subconscious isn't paying attention and bludgeon you with a feather? Have you ever had one tickle your taint or replace all your utensils with exact duplicates when you're at your cousin's funeral?

I haven't either, but I've watched this Krzysztof Kieslowski movie which is close to either some of those or none of those. But it's not really a movie as much as it is somebody slipping into the folds of your mind and doodling, pictures as rudimentary and beautiful as cave paintings. You know that feeling you sometimes get when you're just drifting off to sleep and start dreaming way too early? Somebody in your semi-dream state is stabbing at you with a fork, and both your dream arm and your real arm jerks up to defend yourself against the attack? The experience of watching this movie is a lot like that except you're in somebody else's dream--or maybe it's two people's dreams--and Kieslowski, instead of stabbing at you with a fork, is tantalizing you with memories you've never had. It's more like a spork. All those sporky memories.

I couldn't begin to tell you what this movie is about. Even a plot synopsis is difficult because the connections Kieslowski is asking me to make between these characters just don't connect in any logical or expected way. The character's motivations aren't always clear. The narrative structure only whispers that it's leading to something--it totally swears that it will--and then never does. You keep waiting for something supernatural to come along and explain the whole thing, some banshee with a hacksaw to reshape some of the puzzle pieces so they'll fit together a little better, but that never happens. So you're left with jerking your arms, metaphorically, and accepting that this is something that can only be understood with your entrails and not your head. It's a movie you feel, and it feels so fucking good.

When I first learned the word "doppelganger" as an elementary school kid, the urban legend was that seeing yours was a harbinger of death. So I didn't leave my room for fourteen months, several important formative months, stunting my social (and likely intellectual) growth. I'm blaming that for the reason I wasn't able to have sex until I was in my thirties. But I digress.

Or do I? I don't even know anymore.

Evocative colors, stunning cinematography from Slawomir Idziak, loads of visual tricks. This movie might be easier on the eyes than anything I've ever seen, so no matter how frustrated a person might be with trying to figure out a riddle that might not have an earthly answer or--even worse--might have seventeen different answers, it's impossible to focus on that frustration because you just want to soak it all in, make it a part of you. Visual wonders abound throughout--the topsy-turvy landscape seen through a magical rubber ball, a shower of ceiling dust on a smiling face, that same face upturned and singing through a rain storm as all the other singers scurry away, parallel scenes of old women struggling to get from Points A to Points B, soul-cam sailing over the heads of an audience, the most beautiful of breasts, delicate marionette artistry, a woman who might be a reflection herself falling in love with a reflection, a backwards cigarette, a mysterious shoelace, a burial, tree fondling. They're the imagery of a sleepy but vibrant poet, and they create a whole that is as wonderfully mysterious as anything I've ever seen.

Irene Jacob, playing either two characters with similar name or one character or one puppet and one human character or no characters at all, is outstanding. Kieslowski's camera often ogles, studies her as if its trying to figure her out at the same time we are. I think she's outstanding here, sometimes silently doing her own hypnotic tricks on the viewer. Anyway, I've fallen in love with both of her.

One morning, after I've gotten a rare eight hours of sleep, I'm going to wake up with a complete understanding of The Double Life of Veronique. Then, I'll fade away like ceiling dust, and my doppelganger will wonder what happened to me. He'll have to talk to my little person lawyer about that.

Holy hell! I just realized that both Veronique and Weronika have scenes involving strings in this movie. They are marionettes! See--I'm already starting to wake up.