The Double Life of Véronique

People love The Double Life of Véronique. I rank it as the weakest Kieślowski film I’ve watched to date. Maybe I didn’t understand it.

In short, we follow two doppelgangers, both played by Irène Jacob. One lives in Poland, the other in France. They almost cross paths early in the film. Throughout, you get the sense that they share dreams or somehow know of one another. The film definitely has a metaphysical element, though it is never explained.

Certain aspects of the film bothered me. Why does Véronique, the French doppelganger, cry all the time? The film presents her pensive stare and sullen mood as some sort of deep poetic mystery. And why does Weronika, the Polish doppelganger, keel over? She is sick, yes, but we are never quite sure why. Neither is she. Finally, what is up with that flasher? With Kieślowski, you want to assign meaning to everything, yet that brief scene felt meaningless and unnecessary.

Overall, the film reminded me of Bergman’s Persona, though I have not seen that in a very long time and may be misremembering it. Anyway, whether The Double Life of Véronique is flawed or I simply was not in the mood for it, there were still several wonderful shots.

After this, I have four films left in my Kieślowski retrospective: Camera Buff and the Three Colors trilogy. I’m looking forward to all four.