The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Irene Jacob as Weronika and Véronique.

Fresh from a blockbuster overload after watching “The Dark Knight Rises” a couple of times (and “The Amazing Spider-Man” before that), it’s a bit off for me to immediately jump back to my more esoteric inclinations. Now, here’s Krzysztof Kieslowski’s enigmatic “The Double Life of Veronique”, a film that, like the movements of the marionettes shown in the film, unveils its story with a certain hypnotic vibe. Honestly, I’m not quite sure if what I have seen is really something deeply meditative or merely a pretentious piece, but it is nonetheless an artful ride. 

     

Just like a typical Kieslowski film, “The Double Life of Veronique” appears as if little to nothing is going to happen and as if the main characters’ feelings are operating within the confines of an emotional plane alien to ordinary viewers like us. But with the Kieslowki’s usual sleight-of-hand at play here, and with that I mean his penchant for integrating deeply affecting concepts about love and identity within the visual limitations of a subtle drama film, “The Double Life of Veronique” is quite successful in a handful of levels. 

     

First, it is a well-crafted cinematic amalgamation of music and imagery (thanks to Kieslowski’s frequent collaborators Zbigniew Preisner and Slawomir Idziak). Second, it is a film particularly memorable because of Irene Jacob’s natural, iridescent charm and quietly devastating performance. And third, well, this is where the more ambiguous things come in. As an abstract film both in emotions and meaning, it is meritorious in just letting its own visual and auditory mood take over the reins of telling the film’s story (or the reins of justifying the lack thereof). But unlike your usually plotless art film, “The Double Life of Veronique” has an involving narrative working to its own advantage. 

     

Well, the story is quite simplistic. It concerns two women who look very much alike: Weronika, who lives in Poland, and Veronique, who lives in Paris. Both characters are played by Irene Jacob. From the hair to their dressing preference, they are the spitting images of one another. Hell, they’re not even related. 

     

Not aware of each other’s existence, the film’s metaphysical powers are slowly creating a bridge; slowly, we are seeing the connection between them. But Kieslowski, arguably at his subtlest, won’t let his film be tarnished by some clichéd chance encounters or life-affirming vis a vis between the two. Instead, Kieslowski has spatially set both characters apart from each other to first let their independent stories be told. Weronika, a considerably free-spirited young woman, is just inches away from attaining success in the world of opera singing. Veronique, on the other hand, is a music teacher in search of a meaningful love. From these simple stories of existence, the film is quite surprising in how it slowly widens its conceptual plane as it progresses. From simply being a drama film about two look-alikes, “The Double Life of Veronique” slowly turns into a meditation about distant duality and the spiritual and emotional connection between two people created in the same physical mould.

     

So, maybe this is where God enters this little humanist circus. Does Kieslowski perceive God as a playful master creator? An omniscient being that brings dead ringers into existence, intentionally integrates them into the stream of life and then watch the sparks fly? Is there some sort of energy that these two share that when one of them dies, the other gets weaker and emptier inside? Kieslowski’s vision for this picture is just too far-reaching and, at the same time, so wonderfully ambiguous that its idea just won’t end where this film already has. Take “Another Earth” as an ideal example. I believe that the said film is “The Double Life of Veronique” all over again. 

     

Adding a sci-fi element by incorporating a ‘mirror’ earth that is said to be inhabited by parallel versions of ourselves, “Another Earth” just took this film’s whole concept and made it a notch more complicated but a notch less fascinating. But do not get me wrong, I think that “Another Earth”, as a film, has its own merits. But at the end of the day, I very much prefer Kieslowski’s masterly stroke of using nothing as his ultimate explanation to everything. Though this might be considered as a pretentious cop-out on his part, leaving everything unanswered has made the film even more compelling and reflective than it should have been. Although we all have different takes on it, we do not hold the key to what it’s really all about. Perhaps life itself does, and we just aren’t looking closely.

FINAL RATING

Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Destiny.

With its beautifully multi-layered drama and its great sense of closure, "Three Colors: Red" is quite easily the best film in Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy. It stars the beautiful Irene Jacob as Valentine, an easy-going fashion model, and Jean-Louis Trintignant ("The Conformist") as an enigmatic retired judge who eavesdrops on his neighbors' private lives by way of wire-tapping their telephones and successively playing them in his speakers as if a series of radio shows. Although the relationship between Valentine and the judge is peppered with psychosexual tension, which my more cynical mind, to a certain extent, reminds me a lot of the relationship between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter, the film, albeit the enveloping intrigue and mystery that surrounds the whole film's premise, is a hopeful exercise in love and human warmth.

Out of the three films, I think that "Three Colors: Red" is the most immediately relatable but at the same time also the most cryptic (the questionable actions of the retired judge). We can relate with the adventurous Valentine because, unconsciously, we are also her because by any chance our car may ran over a dog and find out that the wounded animal has a name tag with an address in it, we will immediately return it to the owner, which in this case is the judge. This is how Valentine and the mysterious judge met, therefore forming a bond forged out of curiosity and developed out of the immediacy of human connection.

For some filmmakers, with this kind of characters, a twenty-something girl and a sixty-something man, it's enough grounds to create a relatively pretentious romance. But Kieslowski, himself about to reach sixty years of existence himself (which he never did when he suddenly died in 1996) by the time this film, his last one, was released, knows better by instead playing this type of character relationship with dramatic assurance, wisdom and lots of heart. Of course, it's not without a hint of tragedy and a sense of isolation, which both "Three Colors: Blue" and "Three Colors: White" has finely established in different perspectives.

But aside from this filmic relationship, Kieslowski also has something much trickier to pull off: how to coherently tie up the three films while also giving his current characters enough breathing space to wrap up their own situation.

On one side, we have the budding emotional involvement between Valentine and the privacy-invading judge. On the other, there's also a young judge named Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit), whose life, in many ways, closely mirrors that of the judge's and who's currently involved in a run-of-the-mill romance with a personal weather reporter.

At surface viewing, "Three Colors: Red" may look like your typical film by way of how it tackles love and existence at different viewpoints, sometimes in bliss, sometimes in pain. But Kieslowski has created his characters to fit an urgent inevitability to unconsciously interconnect. In this idea of intertwining of fates, Kieslowski has already gave us a tease by mistakenly letting Julie (from "Three Colors: Blue") enter the courtroom where the divorce trial between Karol and Dominique is taking place in the beginning of "Three Colors: White". There's also the hunched old lady (who appeared in all three films) immersed in a mundane difficulty: The camera and the characters always catch her laboriously trying to put an empty bottle inside a trash bin; a prominent figure in the whole trilogy that has been, in a way, the barometer of the protagonists' characters. (Julie merely looked at her in puzzled sadness while Karol minutely smirked at her predicament. Only Valentine has the basic courtesy to help her put the bottle in the bin).

In this film, it has truly, as they say, come in full circle.

But not in the way how a generic ensemble film may. Sure, the film may have discoursed about the general outlook of love by way of those two (bliss and pain) extremes, but the film is a minuscule observation of love and life at the same time as it is a far-reaching, 'what if' meditation on time. In the end, "Three Colors: Red" relies on the singular choices and plans of its characters instead of giving the responsibility to an invisibly omniscient hand to move the likes of Valentine and the judge as if indifferent chess pieces. And for that, the film was uniquely pragmatic.

After 'liberty' and 'equality' were tackled through individualistic perspectives by way of Julie and Karol in the two previous films, "Three Colors: Red" was able to brilliantly put these stories, stories of people striving through all too human flaws, in a holistic harmony even in the midst of a tragedy. This may very well be the significance of 'fraternity' in the whole film, but "Three Colors: Red" is also quite aware of another infinitely more transcendent thing: destiny. Again, with its fascinating visionary depth and articulate human drama, "Three Colors: Red" is the best film in the trilogy, and is also a fitting swan song for Krzysztof Kieslowski, who sadly passed away far too soon.

FINAL RATING

Three Colors: White (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

The secret in his eyes.

A slight departure from "Three Colors: Blue's" transcendent and melancholic tone, Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Three Colors: White", representing the middle color in the French flag which symbolizes the virtue of equality, is humorous in its study of sexual weakness and subsequent redemption. The film opens with a trial scene involving Karol Karol (Zbiegniew Zabachowski), a hairdresser who has, ever since his marriage with his wife Dominque (Julie Delpy), failed to sexually consummate their love.

With his numerous insecurities and sexual inferiority plaguing their marriage and also are the things that are responsible for putting him on the pitiful end of a divorce, just like Julie's isolation in "Three Colors: Blue", he has withdrawn himself from the main stream of existence. But this time, this isolation is never a strengthened choice. Pushed into the streets with a frozen bank account and only a large, almost empty suitcase to live with, he is a definitive image not of emotional bravery (unlike Julie) but of defeat.

But as fate permits it, he meets Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos), initially a mysterious Polish lad who has soon became his friend. Unlike the previous film which broods about loneliness and repeatedly hints on isolated sadness, our protagonist here in "Three Colors: White" is also a lonely little chap but with a trusted pal. Although of course inserted by Kieslowski more importantly as an initial plot device (this film is, after all, the most plot-reliant of the trilogy), the Mikolaj character slowly transforms from being a hazy character with questionable intents into a surprisingly upbeat light that has been most instrumental for Karol's new lease on life, which is the same equivalent of what Karol is to Mikolaj. And in this friendship that was built in a time of utter tribulation, there's the cause of it all: Dominique.

Julie Delpy, who I have first seen in "Before Sunrise" as the intelligently vibrant and sweet Celine, is unbelievably cold and indifferent as Dominque. At times she even looks and feels like a femme fatale. But Kieslowski, veering away from the shallow dimensions of character stereotypes, treated Dominique not as the aggravator of the situation but also as a victim of circumstances. Just like every wife, Dominique only wants sexual and emotional fulfillment in her marriage. But Karol, ever the shy sexual weakling, never properly took on the role of an accommodating husband.

From what I've noticed, "Three Colors: White" was very well-known as a revenge film as much as it is recognized internationally as the only comedy film in the trilogy, albeit a dark one. For many, this certain 'revenge', planned by Karol to give Dominique her deserved comeuppance (the catalyst being the time when he has heard her pleasurably moaning on the phone, presumably while having sex with another man), is the poetic justice that the film is looking for on Karol's part for him to attain the signified 'equality' that the color 'white' is representing. But as I look more into it, the less I give a damn about Karol's so-called vengeance scheme.

Sure, it was, for a moment, very enlightening and emotionally purging for us because we have rooted for Karol in the film's entirety. Yes, we are supposed to, but we're not compelled by Kieslowski to overly do so because he has never overlooked to give dear Dominique her own share of a beating heart.

In the end, as I subconsciously decipher the pure significance of 'equality' in the whole film and as Karol gradually changes from a vulnerable sap into a relatively powerful businessman and a confident male, the more I think that it's not Karol's quest for revenge that is the real point of the film in terms of aligning itself with the color white's 'equality' symbolism but more significantly about how Dominique, being a good wife and all (the film shows how genuinely happy she is during their wedding), gets what she deserves: a Karol who's sure of himself, is sexually assertive, and knows what he wants.

In a way, I even think that when Dominique finally found out about Karol's vengeful scheme, sure she was shocked, but she's also silently elated. With the way how her husband has handled and cleverly played the situation to manipulate the situation to his advantage and set it against her, she has realized ever so unconsciously that Karol, at that very moment, has finally become a man, the one that she's waiting to love. This therefore creates equality between the ever- loving feminine (Dominique) and the now transformed masculine (Karol), making their marriage worth all the emotional pitfalls, the agony of sexual misgivings, and the pain of relational apathy.

So surprisingly, "Three Colors: White" is not just a one-sided tale of revenge but is also an exploration of the essential role masculinity plays in strengthening a marriage. Absurdist as the film may sometimes seems to be, Kieslowski still has offered a fresh take on the thorns and roses that populates not just the spacious boundaries of love, but also the bumbling and stumbling confines of life.

FINAL RATING

Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Calm waters.

Even though I am clueless regarding Krzysztof Kieslowski's other works before I even laid my eyes on "Three Colors: Blue", and even though how frustratingly misleading the little summary on the back of the DVD really is, I still immensely liked the film. But not in a way how I may like a straightforwardly well-written film.

Deviating from filmic conventions, although it is in fact a very linear film, "Three Colors: Blue" manages to convey the deepest of emotions not much through storytelling but more through calculated camera movements and stunning cinematography (by Slawomir Idziak). And with that, the film has managed to make me appreciate its wholeness in much the same way how a beautifully experimental musical piece may capture a music lover's heart.

With a title that suggests immediate melancholy and visuals that further this emotional atmosphere even more, "Three Colors: Blue" is more of a mood piece than it is an immediate narrative. It is, as it flexes its finely-toned existential muscles, an emotional spectrum subjectively seen through the eyes of a middle-aged woman named Julie, played by Oscar winner Juliette Binoche, who, after being involved in a car accident which claimed the lives of both her husband and child, decided to completely remove herself from the life that she has always cherished and loved.

Starting her aimless goal by selling their house, all the other things in it, and burning the difficult concert piece that her composer husband has written to commemorate the unification of Europe but sadly hasn't finished, Julie rented an apartment in a not-so-affluent part of Paris and started to live her life in utter isolation, save for some slight interactions with other people here and there (with a young prostitute being the most notable).

But even though she wants solitude, there's Olivier (Benoit Regent), a colleague of Julie's husband, who constantly shows his love for Julie but is seemingly contented by the quite sad fact that he can only show it in futile admiration. But despite of that, he is always ready to support her in the midst of her emotional plight and is also eager to finish her late husband's concert piece. For a film (again, back on the DVD's summary fiasco) that has promised utmost 'mystery' and 'seduction', "Blue" is surprisingly warm and affectionate in its romantic notions and never, even for once, stooped down to an extremely sensationalist, 'sex for the sake of it' level.

The film is also quite rich in its visual interpretation of emotional alienation and frustration. With Kieslowski uniquely using sudden fades into black in scenes whenever Julie is met with the difficulty of answering questions that may unveil what she's really feeling at moments, and ingeniously injecting blue-colored objects to enforce the film's recurring color motif, "Three Colors: Blue", as it progresses, patiently develops into a purer form of art house cinema that criss-crosses between realistic human emotions and esoteric overtones.

Form and content, message and execution, these are the most basic requirements for a film to be considered as an artistic whole. For this film, Kieslowski balances both on a very thin wire as if a cerebral circus performer, seemingly experimenting as he paces along, even with one outweighing the other, but nonetheless, a walk that is not without a clear finish.

"Three Colors: Blue", as a whole, surely is a fine piece of foreign cinema that seeks to inform its audience that there's no such thing as a generalized emotional milieu for a certain societal stream. 'Existence is isolation', Kieslowski, in part, may have had in mind as he works with this film, but it can never be denied that he has created the film with a concrete glimmer of hope and a beautiful melody somewhere in his mind.

"Blue", the first chapter of Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy, is a very effective drama film about tragedy and artistry. But more evidently, it is an ideal example of how brilliant the art of cinematographic composition, partnered with some achingly beautiful music, can really be when skillfully pushed to absolute perfection.

FINAL RATING