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Rating: After the efforts of “The Decalogue” (10 films of 1 hour each!!), director Kieslowski (with the trusted Piesiewicz) in 1990 dived headlong into this unusual but utterly fascinating project: the idea that EACH of us has, somewhere unspecified in the world, a double self. A person exactly identical to us who lives our same experiences, but whose existence we are unaware of. As if the entire planet were practically populated by half of the individuals, because the other half is scattered in other parts of the world. A theory that many find bizarre but very fascinating, which allowed our director, always enchanted by a sacred and ethical vision of life, to create this film considered by many his masterpiece and spiritual testament.
“La double vie de Veronique” (in original) was released in 1991 and constitutes a long inner dialogue filled with a human and perceptive sensitivity that raises great moral and spiritual questions about the value of one's being, one's existence, and the ultimate meaning of the world.
Two women have the same body, the same voice, the same behavioral characteristics…only their native languages (Polish and French) differentiate them. A gentle film, full of a dreamy and ethereal atmosphere where the two women, having come to know of each other accidentally, chase after each other in a continuous search for confirmation of existence, in the reflection of the other. A film that tells the great mystery of their (our) lives suspended in a time that flows uncertainly, allowing only small moments of communion of intentions, in the slow progression of a distracted, rarefied life, rich with voids to fill in moments to seize on the fly, amidst intermittent communication that doesn’t always come our way.
A discovery of ourselves in the eyes, dreams, and thousand facets of the other in a multifaceted, deep, sensory, intuitive, and certainly introspective reading. Veronique and Weronika (even the same name!) try to understand themselves by seeking the motivations of the other’s life, admitting the total incapacity to decipher their own in a concentric, harmonious, and hypnotic story made of continuous references to one or the other as if they lived in a Matryoshka of meanings to decipher.
When one of the two will be lost to a serious accident, the other will “perceive” the profound change happening within and which will lead her to seek the unexpressed energy from her alter-ego and the signs of a destiny left incomplete. This will lead to a sort of secular conversion that allows one to “complete” the divine plan of the other, in a kind of “spiritual communion of intents” that transcends any rational logic.
A sort of circular film with an ethical and almost religious sense (the spectacular and intense music by Preisner sung by the choir of Van Den Budenmayer in the scenes where Veronique sings in the theater) that serves as the backdrop to the events of the two protagonists who also relate thanks to a series of common objects (always circular in shape) that serve as ideal witnesses of a half-lived existence: a ring, a transparent marble, a lip gloss, small grafts of reality common to both.
A sign that perhaps, in this life, we are not entirely alone and that there is someone, even if only one, who can understand us and comprehend us always and no matter what: Our self that lives elsewhere.
A film of unique emotional intensity that, despite repeated viewings, always finds an element of attraction that always refers to something not fully grasped, still to be discovered, and truly enchanting in every scene.
Five years after this film, the director will die of a heart attack, like his protagonist. Perhaps a sign of a future already marked and a capacity of foresight beyond the imaginable by a director who has given Cinema the depth of an ethical, moral, and civil belief in many ways still unsurpassed.
This film is a Masterpiece of grace and sensitivity beyond all measure.
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