those things you can't name...
Spending the day with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Véronique is finding a deeper place inside yourself, and what you find while you’re there is someone writing it all down… And you are the one writing.
24.11.06
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4 comments:
I watched "Double Life..." again this afternoon. It just blows me away. The camera angles, the lighting, how luminous Irene Jacob looks in every scene. I think my favorite part of the film is Veronique tracking down the puppeteer to Gare St. Lazare using sounds from the tape.
The ending of the film is so enigmatic. I went back and watched several scenes again to see how Veronique reaching out to touch the tree from her car window looped back to Weronika. Was it the scar on their hands?
I understand your point about the ending -- which I love. I wonder if Veronique's touching the tree -- obviously relating to the young Veronique examining the leaf -- isn't balanced by the young Weronika, upside down, looking at the street and sky in Poland. The street, sky and stars, an early view of the tree, anchored and reaching skyward.
Doesn't Veronique rest on a tree, in a line of trees-- and that in turn relates to Weronika's weaving through a line of pillars, after she's been told that she has a beautiful voice, just before she drops the music?
For me the scar -- brilliant -- is also represented in the shoelace, the trailing scarf, and the puppet strings.
Have you seen the ending that was used in the US version... added on? --an ending I do not like.
Very good points, Sam! I see those connections now.
I did see the film in the theater, but for the life of me cannot remember the extra scenes tacked on at the end. This is not a bonus feature on the Region 2 version, which is now up for sale on ebay. That Criterion version is so gorgeous and superior, I simply must have it.
Thanks for your comments Alexandre. I appreciate your insight into the film.
That being said, I can't agree, at all, with this notion: Kieslowski didn't want "clever metaphors, metaphysical meanings". I don't want to imagine, however, the film or Kieslowski's approach as being clever. For me that term denies the art. But, I will say that I think Double Life is a metaphysical film of the highest order. There's no other way for me to take it. Kieslowski realized, at least I think he did, that he was filming a highly improbable story. Certainly not supernatural. But also a film that's not purely physical. It can’t be explained. It can be debated, but has no final explanation.
The very connection of the room numbers that you mention function in the realm of metaphor. Part of the film’s deep texture. Annette Insdorf flatly disagrees with the notion of an absence of metaphors in the film. I know I do.
I’m of the mind set with film – as I am with poetry, for example – that the creator is not the best source for understanding of the work. Kieslowski certainly weaved his way through the film – and I really like the idea of his wanting 17 different films … what an interesting possibility, though I’m glad he abandoned that plan. Jacob is probably a much better source, but as you point out, the final cut of the film is itself a radical departure from the film as she envisioned it.
Double Life is Kieslowski’s most beautiful moment in film. Though… my preference is The Decalogue.
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