- Young Weronika (Irène Jacob) senses that something is wrong in her life. You might naturally suppose that the problems stem from her relationship with her boyfriend Antek (Jerzy Gudejko) or her burgeoning singing career, but it's something much more intangible than that. To paraphrase her words, she suddenly feels as though she is no longer alone in the world, which is a more troubling sensation than you might think. While visiting her ailing aunt (Halina Gryglaszewska) in Warsaw, Weronika's ethereal voice lands her a job singing with a local orchestra. On the night of her first concert, she collapses dead onstage in the middle of the performance. But that's hardly the end of Weronika's story.
- Young Véronique has much in common with Weronika, from her similar name to the fact that she is played by the same actress. She also shares Weronika's strange existential concern, accompanied by a sudden sense of loss when the singer dies. Véronique's romantic nature leads her to fall in love at first sight with a marionette performer named Alexandre (Philippe Volter), but he departs for Paris before she can talk to him. When she isn't busy teaching young music students a very familiar-sounding tune, she spends her time poring over clues that Alexandre keeps sending her in the mail. Finally, she deduces that he must be waiting at a particular Paris metro station and confronts him there. Their encounter doesn't go exactly as either party expected, but they end up together for a night of romance. Did I mention that Véronique's hotel room number was the same as Antek's? The connections hardly end there.
- From this plot summary, you might get the impression that watching Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique is a baffling, frustrating experience. Nothing I described really makes much sense, right? In fact, the film's sights and sounds are so absorbing that I found myself completely fascinated from beginning to end. The film's frequent use of mirror reflections and its rich, otherworldly color palette are constant wonders to behold. There are many great scenes, but my favorite is surely the hypnotic marionette show featuring two dolls that act out a situation we've all seen somewhere before. The two scenes in which one young woman slowly discovers the other's existence are also especially striking. Tied together with a perfect atmospheric soundtrack by Zbigniew Preisner and brilliant performances, both acting and singing, by Jacob, this absolutely unique film impresses at every turn. Kieslowski proves here that a great film can present nonsensical circumstances in a manner that makes them seem undeniably relatable and true.
