arsonfilms wrote:What grounds the film for me is the solid theoretical exploration of quantum/parallel realities. The idea of having one person choose to follow her passion and suffer for it weighed against another (or, actually, the same) person choose a different path and be content is enough of a narrative foundation that I'd grant the film some merit based on that alone. Run Lola, Run for instance is an identical premise
Yes, and this is a similar premise to Blind Chance, though that is even more of the quantum/multiverse world as the character is clearly the same in all three cases.
Run Lola Run, that's the other film I was thinking of that was like Blind Chance...
The Double Life of Veronique is a masterpiece of pure cinema. It's an exquisitely crafted, symphonic film, with characters and scenes that haunt the imagination. Artists walk a fine line when dealing with metaphysical themes, but Kieslowski pulls it off, leaving the viewer fascinated and intrigued. As Annette Insdorf says in her commentary, although Kieslowski is championed as an auteur, The Double Life of Veronique succeeds because it is in essence a collaborative affair - one cannot fail to take into account Idziak's exemplary cinematography (especially his use of odd lenses and filters), Preisner's haunting score (which can stand very well on its own) or Jacob's beautiful perfomance in the title role/s. It also marks an interesting transition between the sombre Polish films (especially the Dekalog) and the stylish Three Colours trilogy.
Insdorff's commentary is one of the best I've heard - it's great how she manages to balance information on the filming with a study of the film's themes and Kieslowski's general concerns.
Postscript: Did Jeunet's Amelie come to anyone's mind while watching this film? The more I watch Kieslowski, the more I see Amelie as Kieslowski-lite with extra sugar-coating (it would seem to me that Amelie is quite derivative of both The Double Life of Veronique and Red).
Last edited by King of Kong on Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I got this response when I asked about Decalogue recently:
Kim Hendrickson wrote:Jonathan Turell forwarded your note to me.
As much as we'd love to release the DECALOGUE on Criterion, we don't currently own the rights. We are looking into this, though, so perhaps things will change in the next year or so.
Hey there, for those of you who feel the two-disc set is a mite rich for your tastes, Image is releasing a single-disc version of this under the Home Vision banner next February. No word on whether the commentary track or any of the other extras will be ported over.
Didn't really know where to put this: I attended a lecture by Slavoj Zizek last night, and the mad Slovenian was wearing a "wacky C" t-shirt. I spent ten minutes racking my brain as to why Zizek would be involved with Criterion, and then I remembered...
On another site, someone posted some interesting information (which can be gleaned from Wikipedia) about the name Veronica. Saint Veronica was "a pious woman of Jerusalem who, moved with pity as Jesus carried his cross to Golgotha, gave him her veil that he might wipe his forehead. Jesus accepted the offering and after using it handed it back to her, the image of his face miraculously impressed upon it." Although the true etymology of Veronica is quite different, a folk etymology arose attributing the origin to veraeikon, true image. A veronica is the image of Christ on St. Veronica's scarf, or any similar cloth or shroud with such an image. I don't know whether Véronique is a serendipitously or intentionally apt name for a character in a movie dealing with doppelgängers and reflected images.
There's an additional meaning to veronica that has an oblique connexion to the film. A veroncia is also a pass in bullfighting in which the matador slowly swings the cape away from the charging bull. The term derives from the way St. Veronica is typically depicted holding the cloth -- you can see this if you look up St. Veronica on Wiki. At the one point in the film where Véronique and Weronika intersect, the bus and camera go through a turn very much resembling a pass in bullfighting. Or is that too fanciful?
Could be. I think we also need to bear in mind that, for thematic balance, every Veronica needs her Betty, and I like to think of the film as a struggle between those two aspects of womanhood.
I read somewhere that the polish Weronika and the french Veronica, were symbols of eastern and western Europe, under the iron curtain, and how the east was sacrificed compared to the west, and that was why the polish Weronika died.
The bond, I always saw as 2 things: How we learn from others (in real live and from watching movies), and toying with the idea that there's someone out there pretty much like ourself.
I think the film shares a lot of themes with films like Possession, Inland Empire, Mulholland Dr, The Intruder, Vertigo, etc. I'm not sure why it seems to have a fair number of detractors or why it leaves so many unaffected.
I read through the comments on the previous page and I'm surprised at people dismissing the significance of doubles. Surely we're not taking the film that literally. I mean, of course we can marvel at the metaphysics of the film and entertain its notion of a double life literally -- that dimension of the film does exist. But really it's a different way of investigating the self, as Ed suggests above. Veronique and Weronika are two variations on the same theme (or perhaps Veronique is a variation on the theme that Weronika establishes). This is a life twice lived. In this sense it resembles films like Run Lola Run or Kieslowski's own Blind Chance -- films that show us life's alternatives, based on the choices we make -- except I feel this film is more complex. It's a dialogue between two souls (or, if you prefer, between two parts of the self). They are trying to decide between themselves what they value most in their life(/lives).
It reminds me very much of an idea my friends and I discussed when we were young. We thought, "What if we live the same life over and over again, ad infinitum -- except each time we die, we change something. We learn from that last life and change one detail. And gradually, over the course of thousands of similar but different lives, we reach our ideal life, or the life we were meant to live."
It's a fanciful notion, obviously, but it serves a very real purpose. It makes you wonder what you might change. What effects would those changes have? What aspects of your life are absolutely necessary, and what parts feel out of place? Do you need to make sacrifices in order to bring your life toward its hypothetical ideal? All pretty elementary stuff, but I think it's a compelling way of approaching the question.
Another personal note, which helps to account for my bias toward this film: When I was young (fourteen maybe, or even younger; in any case, long before I had seen the film) I wrote a story where the narrator saw his doppelganger from a coffee shop window. It was written in first person and while the narrator was older than I was at the time, he was meant to stand in for me. I don't remember what compelled me to write the story, nor can I recall all the details. I just remember that the narrator saw his double standing in the parking lot, smoking. The double did not see him. When the double drove away, he left in a car of the same make and color as the narrator's. It ended on a contemplative/reflective note, though I don't remember what it said precisely. I've long since lost the story.
Maybe it doesn't speak well of Kieslowski, that a teenager could write a story which mirrors the premise of his film. But seeing this film felt as serendipitous as the brief contact between Veronique and Weronika. Something of my own life found itself reflected very clearly in The Double Life of Veronique. This film mesmerized me the first time I saw it. I'm not sure any other film has held me so transfixed. This didn't persist on the second viewing, when I felt a strange distance from the film which allowed me to understand the criticisms directed toward it, but my third viewing came close to the first.
One criticism I don't understand, though: Kieslowski's supposed dependence on coincidence. I can see it in other films of his, certainly, but nothing in this film seems extraordinarily unlikely. If we take the central conceit (the double) at face value, what coincidence is there? It's been a while since I've watched it, but the only thing that comes to mind is the "meeting" between the two, and the chance of Veronique taking that photograph. Is there something I'm forgetting? Because it doesn't seem unreasonable to me, to have one major coincidence as the crux of the film. If you can even call it coincidence, given the nature of their relationship.
Theres the coincidence that Veronica meets, the puppeteer in a trafic light, and he signals her to flip her cigarette around. Also theres Veronika meeting a woman on the train station who knows Weronika from the concert in Poland. Veronikas friend has the puppeteers children book. Can't remember if theres more, but I guess there is.
I didn't think the coincidences hurt the movie, theyre no worse than what you see in most other movies. If you accept the double, then the coincidences seems light compared to that.
Bluray coming in February! Will have to upgrade this.
But here's what is said about the book (there is a difference).
Criterion wrote:- PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Jonathan Romney, Slavoj Zizek, and Peter Cowie, and a selection from Kieślowski on Kieślowski (Note: Blu-ray booklet includes only Romney essay and Kieślowski on Kieślowski reprint)
It seems likely that they're making accomodations to avoid printing a booklet too large to fit into a keepcase, which is unfortunate because the DVD digipack is outstanding.
I'm just going to keep the blu disc in the DVD packaging - as I plan for the upcoming Videodrome. This has by far my favorite packaging of the entire collection (Thank you, Irene Jacob!)
Well the Zizek essay was his typical rock-star-philosopher horseshit, so good riddance. Any normal human curious about the film would only be repulsed by his blather should they happen to peruse it, and I would imagine it might spoil their experience of the film, if they bothered to watch it at all at that point.
What is a "typical" rock-star philosopher, anyway? Let's see: Nietzsche? No, no one really read him. Wittgenstein? Nah. Heidegger, maybe, but I his "Disclosiveness of Undisclosiveness" EP didn't go over so well. Neither did his pro-Hitler singles. So he kinda lost his rock-star status, you know. Sartre couldn't shake his indebtedness to Heidegger, but he had his fans, so I guess if you count having lots of fans as being a rock-star, then maybe he's the father of them all.
Murdoch wrote:I'm just going to keep the blu disc in the DVD packaging - as I plan for the upcoming Videodrome. This has by far my favorite packaging of the entire collection (Thank you, Irene Jacob!)
It was such a beautiful digipack, I can't believe they're gonna make it their regular blu-ray case.
