1990 was a year of incredible change on a global scale. But nowhere was that change more felt than in Eastern Europe. To put a finer point on it, there was no more Soviet Bloc. The Iron Curtain had fallen. Among the great number of countries liberated, none was more greatly affected than Poland (with the possible exception of Eastern Germany, of course). The Berlin Wall itself came down just months before (in November, 1989).
It was this environment in which Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski [pronounced ‘Christoph Keeshlowsky’] began work on his first major foreign coproduction (made with financing from France, in fact) entitled The Double Life of Véronique (La double vie de Véronique).
The film centers on two women (both played with a transcendently beautiful melancholy by Iréne Jacob) who have never met, but share an inexplicable, supernatural connection. Weronika is a Polish soprano pursuing a career in vocal performance. Véronique is a French music teacher. Though they have never met, they seem almost identical- same face, same passions, same habits- yet their lives have taken drastically different turns…
It is difficult to put into words the existential power of this film that so deftly plays hopscotch with the line between fantasy and reality. It is nearly impossible to search for meaning in the hypnotizing moments shared with these two women. How does one search for meaning in a story that is itself a search for meaning? Is not that, after all, the beauty of a work that asks a question, but gives no answer? In viewing, The Double Life of Véronique takes its audience (willing or otherwise) along for the ride. That is, if Weronika/Véronique finds an answer to any of her questions, then we do as well. If she does not, then neither will we find an understanding. There are, however, three exacting themes we are gifted with- tools, in a way, with which to uncover some of the mystery. A veil, an upside down world, and a brief, haunting melody.
The film is nigh unto a proverbial juggling act. Where does the fragile veil of reality end? And where do the depths of an ocean of fantasy begin? Kieślowski demonstrates as much at the point when Weronika’s story concludes- at the beginning of her doppelgänger’s tale. We become covered with earth from Weronika’s point of view at her funeral. And with that covering Véronique is uncovered. And the two women’s tales could not be more night and day from each other. Weronika is a tragedy, Véronique is a comedy. Kieślowski could not be less subtle when he replays the events for us (in a marionette show no less- as if Weronika/Véronique are puppets after all, being played by forces unseen and unheard?) The ballerina puppet dies, and is covered with a sheet, only to rise again as a fairy (an angel?). Weronika’s tragic life, an ill-fated singer, seems to resurrect as Véronique, who this time quits life as a singer to be a teacher instead. In a glimpse of the past near the end of the film, Véronique wakes from sleep to say, “I dreamt I saw a white sheet coming down…” One has to wonder, has she been re-birthed once again? But as all questions in this tale, we are given no answers.
There is too the nature of what a veil is. It covers, it obscures, it hides. When Weronika is laid to rest, and the earth covers her, Véronique feels suddenly alone. A direct contrast to when the Polish singer finds her direction, she connects to her counterpart, saying, “I’m not alone anymore.” It is only when this veil covers the other that Véronique is no longer sure of herself. Weronika is hidden, and so is her double’s direction.
It is almost too obvious that the two women seem to represent both Poland and France respectively. And Kieślowski seems to know full well the implications he puts forth. All the world’s nations depend upon each other the same way that Weronika and Véronique do. And when one drops away, there is nothing there to hold the other up.
By this, Kieślowski proposes that we are all parallel, and not as different as we pretend to be. Yet we force ourselves to live in opposing worlds. Parallel-the same- but separate. This might be the first point made in the film when it opens with an upside down view of the city of Krakow, Poland. This is seen again through the rubber ball that the two women seem to share in common. Viewing through the transparent orb, the world is upended. And with both of them looking through the sphere, we cannot help but believe that they are peering into each other’s worlds- as though the ball is a window to another reality (another fantasy?). The sadness they feel is that they can only look, but never share in being. Even at their only chance meeting in life, they must view each other through a glass pane, or a camera lens.
The curious choice to open the film with an upside down world works all too well. Kieślowski tells us plainly that this world we are about to enter is not our own. Every time we see the upturned world, we are drawn deeper down the rabbit hole, until by the end, there is nothing we can question. Everything that has transpired does not need a reason to exist. We must accept it. It seems, just as we begin to believe we can understand this world, we see a topsy-turvy portal that reminds us that reality is skin deep. Beyond the opaque orb is a world of fantasy so subtle, so seemingly like our own, it begs the question, “Does it exist?” Or is it simply a dream Weronika experiences as she lies buried in the ground?
Perhaps Kieślowski does not have a point. Perhaps the image is simply symbolic of a narrative that is as upside down as the world it is set in. The director himself has stated that the film is about thoughts and feelings, a subject that many consider ‘un-filmable’. The mind does not often work in sequence, or chronological order. Why should a film about the mind do so? In this way, what seems in disarray to the eye may be in decent order to the mind. So why shouldn’t the fantasy world we see as completely upside down make perfect sense to Weronika/Véronique? The journey to discover meaning is hers, after all, not ours. We must be reminded that we are simply along for the ride.
The third commonality the two women share is an ethereal work of music. It is the work that Weronika is performing when her heart gives out, and it is the work that Véronique is teaching to her students (and, in part, leads her to connect with new beau Alexandre Fabbré). Teaching the class, she says that the piece was written “over two hundred years ago”. This would place the (fictional) piece in the mid-Classical period. She adds that the composer was “only recently discovered”. Beautiful music, she tells us, transcends time. Can it transcend space as well?
The existence of the theme at all in the story of Véronique suggests she may simply be Weronika’s fantastical dream. The music that carried her to the grave carries her French counterpart to life, love, and beyond.
Music, rubber balls, veils, marionettes- all are built to be more, to mean more, than their simple appearance. Weronika and Véronique inexplicably share so much in common, but in the end, they search for meaning in their lives in vastly different ways. Kieślowski’s ultimate point could simply be that, no matter how identical we all can seem, individuality can never be escaped. It will always live inside our souls. There will always be a different journey. It may be a parallel world, a dream, or a fantasy. But whatever it is, there certainly has never been such a deep investigation of what it means to exist than The Double Life of Véronique.
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